Remarks to the General Faculty by President James Wright
October 31, 2005
This is the eighth occasion on which I have had the privilege of addressing you on the state of the college. I can summarize it quite simply: the state of the College in its 237th year is excellent. Let me be even more emphatic: there have been few times in Dartmouth's history when the school has been so competitive, when the learning experience for our students has been so strong, when the faculty have been so accomplished, and when our financial situation has been better. Perhaps symbolizing all of these things has been the construction on campus. I think we can confidently say that there has never been as much construction at any one time in our history. These projects are part of a comprehensive effort to renovate and renew our physical plant and they will substantively add to the quality of the Dartmouth experience.
But this is not the end of the story. Dartmouth's continuing strength is dependent upon more than simply meeting escalating metrics -- it is rooted in a sense of shared responsibility and purpose, in a recognition that our advantages are qualitative, and that we must control and define our goals, setting our own metrics. And as we establish goals and priorities we must always ask the question: to what end?
I spend a significant amount of my time on the road meeting with alumni and other friends. It is part of the job of the college president these days and it is an assignment I willingly take on. I am proud to tell them that Dartmouth today provides one of the leading liberal arts educations in the world, with our exemplary undergraduate experience enhanced by excellent, focused graduate programs in the Arts and Sciences, business, engineering, and medicine. A great institution is defined by a strong, productive faculty and talented, curious, and energetic students who share in the purpose of knowing more each day about those things that interest them. The strength of each -- faculty and students -- enhances our ability to compete for the strongest of the other. This is the core of Dartmouth's particular niche and of our advantage. We have two quite simple and fundamentally related purposes: the creation of new knowledge and the education of our students. The means of doing these things and the measures that mark them as done well are not static things. Nor can this enduring institution ever be static.
The Faculty
Last year, I observed that our strength relates positively to our size, to the sense of collegiality and the interdisciplinary culture that marks Dartmouth. If you look, for example, at some of the rankings that are in place, Tuck School is regularly assessed as the best business school in the world and the Dartmouth undergraduate program is typically in the top 10. I have little doubt that it should rank consistently at the top of any listing that truly assesses the undergraduate experience, but we can put that aside for now. If you look at the top 20 business schools and the top 20 undergraduate programs in the national university category, the College and the Tuck school are among the smallest. The same is true of the Thayer school and the Dartmouth Medical School. We may not compete in size, but we can and do compete in quality and our size is an advantage.
Last year I advanced a singular exception to this principle of limiting growth, that having to do with the faculty. While we have no interest in expanding the number of undergraduates, while we need to limit and focus strategically any graduate student growth, and while we seek to control the size of the administration, we do need to increase the size of the faculty. This goal was a top priority in the strategic plan for the Arts and Sciences so that we could provide more opportunities for students to work individually with the faculty, cover new fields of inquiry, and address enrollment pressures. Five years ago we established a goal of growing the faculty of Arts and Sciences by 10 percent. We are now close to meeting this goal and, indeed, I expect to exceed it by some margin. We have some exciting opportunities to recruit faculty to lead important programs. We are looking forward to appointing a director for the Neukom Institute in Computational Science through a search chaired by Martin Wybourne. We announced last year that that the Sherman Fairchild Foundation had provided Dartmouth with a grant of $10 million to set up two new professorships in innovative fields. Following consultation with colleagues, Dean Folt has established a search for the first of these in the Digital Humanities. Dean Folt has also initiated the search for the E.E. Just Professorship, filling the significant vacancy left when Professor George Langford left us to assume a deanship at the University of Massachusetts.
The strategic growth of the faculty cannot be shaped by cyclical enrollment patterns or by changes in departmental requirements. Faculty slots will always be too precious to be allocated without some clear sense of faculty priority, although we need to respond to student needs and interests. Dean Folt has authorized new lines in economics and government and is working with both departments to hire additional faculty.
The Tuck School has grown its faculty by over a third along with its student body, as part of a strategic plan now implemented, and the Dartmouth Medical School increased its faculty by nearly 10 percent. The Thayer School has seen modest growth with resources focused on the MacLean Engineering Sciences Center, but now that project is close to completion and Dean Joe Helble has joined us, and we expect to also grow that faculty by some measure. Even with this growth, each of our schools will remain smaller than most of its peer institutions.
It is our ambition to hire only the best faculty, and indeed we continue to get our first choice of faculty in most searches. Dean Folt is now assessing the start-up packages we provide. We need to be competitive in this regard so that we can appoint those faculty whom you identify in your searches and also ensure that these faculty will flourish here. We monitor faculty departures, and it is certainly the case that some faculty leave because they have been offered an attractive opportunity elsewhere. Typically, between four and six faculty a year retire (although 2003 saw 13 retirees) and between seven and 10 faculty leave for some other reason. The latter figure is not surprising and is part of the natural turnover of a vibrant institution. More troubling is that a few faculty leave every year because they have difficulty in finding a position for their spouses or partners, and this is something that I know Dean Folt and Provost Scherr are seeking to address.
I have personally been extremely impressed with the caliber of faculty we attract. I have participated in every tenure decision, every promotion, and every endowed chair appointment in the Arts and Sciences since 1989, and every professional school discussion since 1997. I have seen most of your files in these circumstances! And I can attest first-hand to the remarkable accomplishments of our faculty, of you -- as scholars and as teachers. Dean Folt reported that Arts and Sciences faculty last year published over 1,300 articles and 85 books -- and that is just what was recorded in the Faculty Supplements submitted to the Dean of Faculty Office. I suspect that the number is even higher. And faculty in the professional schools publish at a similar rate.
Over the past five years we have seen a tremendous growth in sponsored research activity particularly at the Medical School, but all areas of the College have seen increases. This past year saw the first overall decrease in awards, from $205 million in 2004 to $187 million in 2005, but this still represented an increase from 2003 and most of the decrease relates to a decline in funding for the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P) project funded through the Provost's Office. The Medical School saw a 4 percent increase in its funding, while the Arts and Sciences saw a 72 percent increase. During the fiscal year just ended, faculty and others engaged in sponsored activity submitted 2,125 proposals to external funding agencies with a dollar value of $432 million. This is an active and engaged faculty, and this research has direct implications for our students who work with faculty either individually or in labs and who benefit from the introduction of this new knowledge into lectures and other course work.
A particular strength of Dartmouth is the unusually collaborative culture that encourages imaginative and creative disciplinary and interdisciplinary work across the institution. Faculty at Thayer and the Medical School working together, the engineering master's program shared by Tuck and Thayer, the Health Care Economics collaboration between the Medical School and the Department of Economics, the work in Digital Humanities, the Center for Cognitive and Educational Neuroscience program, our academic programs and our centers, to name just a few -- the range of interdisciplinary work is truly amazing, and I suspect that Dartmouth's size is particularly amenable to this sort of collaboration. Professor Ursula Gibson noted at a recent symposium sponsored by the Center for Nanomaterials Research that because the "departments are small, the walls are low." It is quite appropriate for nanotechnology to remind us that it is not necessary to be large in order to excel. As we do work to enlarge some departments, let us keep a careful eye on the walls.
The strength of Dartmouth comes from the strength of the faculty, and one of the qualities that most defines the faculty is the commitment you have to teaching. Last month, Susan and I invited the new faculty to dinner at the President's House. I was impressed and gratified by the number of them who talked about teaching and working with students. They had come to Dartmouth they said because of its scholarly environment AND because of its commitment to teaching. As students come to Dartmouth because of the quality of the faculty, faculty come here -- and remain here -- because of the quality of the students. We regularly demonstrate that the ongoing debate about teaching versus research is not an issue -- we expect both and faculty and students come here because this is the case.
There are other external metrics that speak to the quality of the Dartmouth experience as well. Student satisfaction data suggest that undergraduates are extremely satisfied with their Dartmouth education and are particularly satisfied with the accessibility of faculty.
Last year, undergraduates received over 1,000 credits for independent study with a faculty member through the Presidential Scholars program, or by writing a thesis, by working in a science lab, or simply by working one-on-one with a faculty member for a term. These are impressive statistics and we know that still more students want similar opportunities. This of course relates back to our need to continue to grow the faculty. We continue to make progress with the writing program and with advising incoming students. The Dean of Faculty Office has also assumed direction over fellowship advising, which I hope will also lead to greater success in that area.
Faculty Compensation
Providing competitive faculty compensation remains a top priority. In the Arts and Sciences we continue to work aggressively toward our goal of reaching the median compensation of a set of peer institutions. In the past three years we have moved from 95 percent of the median for full professors to 98.5 percent, from 99 percent for associate professors to 101 percent, and from 96.5 percent for assistant professors to 97 percent. The Arts and Sciences faculty compensation budget has grown from $29 million in 2000 to $41 million today. Last spring, we supplemented the pool to try to reach our compensation goal but we will not know if we succeeded until we get the comparative data in the spring. We have, however, this year set aside an additional $1 million to address any possible shortfalls in addition to what is already budgeted for compensation. It is essential that we reach these goals.
I am also aware of the difficulties too many faculty have buying into the Upper Valley housing market. Indeed, a report to the Hanover zoning board as far back as 1945 noted that "housing facilities in Hanover are inadequate, a condition which, with occasional and temporary exceptions, has been prevalent ever since the days of Eleazar Wheelock." Unfortunately, it remains inadequate. The cost of living in the Upper Valley is high and the cost of housing even higher. We have had a mortgage assistance program but when mortgage rates dropped it became less attractive, and so I have asked Executive Vice President Adam Keller and Director of Real Estate Paul Olsen to look into how we might enhance our programs. They are discussing an expansion to the mortgage assistance program and the addition of a shared appreciation mortgage program. We hope to take these initiatives to the trustees later this year for approval. We are also moving ahead with several real estate projects, including the South Block project downtown, which is currently underway. The Grasse Road III project, currently before the town for approval, will provide more affordable housing than can be found in the local market. And we are working with the town of Hanover to review plans for the redevelopment of Rivercrest.
Last year an AAUP salary study suggested that Dartmouth had a problem with gender equity. This was of course a matter of concern and I asked Provost Barry Scherr to establish a group of academic deans to analyze the data so that we could better understand it and could address promptly any inequities. The AAUP data included salary information from the professional schools with the exception of medical schools; for our study, the Provost's group decided to look separately at DMS as well. The provostial committee decided to hire an outside consultant for a thorough independent analysis. Dr. Robert K. Toutkoushian is a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Indiana University, who has both published and consulted widely on the matter of salary equity. Professor Toutkoushian concluded that "after taking into account the experience levels, educational attainment, and academic fields/disciplines of faculty, there is no evidence of a statistically significant pay disparity between male and female faculty in either the Medical School or the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Engineering, or Business." The Provost will discuss this report in more detail with the Committee on the Faculty and I can assure you that we will continue to monitor this.
In addition to working on faculty compensation we seek to provide faculty with enough opportunities and resources to do the work that define and energize us. We have in the past few years doubled the Faculty Research and Professional Development Fund, increased support for grant management, and expanded the number of junior and senior faculty fellowships. This fall Dean Folt requested that we increase further the number of senior faculty grants, which are increasingly competitive with more compelling applications than we can accommodate. Provost Scherr and I have agreed to do this, expanding the number by up to six additional grants.
Before I move on to talk about other matters, I would add that this past year the trustees established a working group on academic excellence that focused in particular on the Arts and Sciences. The subgroup of trustees, chaired by Leon Black, met with Dean Folt and Provost Scherr on a number of occasions and learned more about the work of the faculty. They looked in detail at the tenure process and were extremely impressed with the thorough and professional procedures faculty followed for this important review. Thanks to Dean Folt's responsiveness to their questions and her clear presentation of faculty accomplishments, the board came to understand even better the strength and commitment of the faculty. This year, the trustees have established another working group, this time with a focus on the graduate and professional schools, with the same purpose of better understanding the strengths and opportunities afforded by these programs. Trustee Michael Chu, who is currently teaching at the Harvard Business School, will chair the group.
We have also begun the process to appoint the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for a five-year term beginning in July of 2006, consistent with the changes adopted by the faculty last spring. Both the Committee on Organization and Policy and the Committee Advisory to the President have met to develop their individual lists of faculty for the search committee and they will be meeting together shortly. We hope to have the committee appointed by the middle of November and the process well underway by the end of this term.
The Students
Each year, Karl Furstenberg and his colleagues in admissions do a remarkable job of admitting some of the brightest, most energetic, students in the country -- and indeed the world. The student body represents the full diversity of the world we live in -- approximately 30 percent are students of color, another 6 percent are international students, approximately 12 percent are the first in their families to attend college and an equal percentage are legacies.
Dartmouth's need-blind admissions policy is one way the College demonstrates its commitment to a diverse and dynamic student body. Our financial aid program continues to adapt to families' needs. In the past 10 years, the annual scholarship budget has grown from $24.3 million to $44.6 million, and the number of undergraduates receiving aid has risen from 1,762 to 1,906. In two major initiatives -- one in 1998, another in 2001 -- Dartmouth added $4.2 million to the annual scholarship program. A third initiative, effective with the Class of 2009, added an additional $200,000 to the scholarship program when fully implemented, and we are even now considering what more we can do to keep Dartmouth accessible to the widest range of students possible. All of the initiatives aimed at reducing the amount of debt students and their families assume to pay for a Dartmouth education. For the past two years the Faculty Committee on Priorities has made financial aid a top priority and it remains a top priority of mine and of the Campaign for the Dartmouth Experience. It is critical that we continue to enroll the full range of academically talented students regardless of their ability to pay.
Once here, all indications are that our students are making the most of their education. We have more and more students who are seeking individual study opportunities with faculty. Last year, the Dean of Faculty Office advertised the Presidential Scholars program a little more than they had done previously, which resulted in many more students applying. This in turn resulted in a $100,000 shortfall in the Presidential Scholar budget. Not at all a bad problem to have, and one we will address.
I find a particular resonance in a statement that President Kemeny and the Board of Trustees developed some 30 years ago: "Dartmouth seeks to educate women and men with the high potential to have a significant positive impact upon society." An elite and privileged institution can do no less. Our purpose here is to provide a liberal arts education that is academically strong and responsive to our students, to inculcate a commitment to learning -- and relearning and unlearning -- as a lifetime assignment and to foster a culture at Dartmouth that values teamwork, encourages leadership, and advances a sense of responsibility in our students.
The relationships students form with their faculty -- their first-year seminar teacher, their major advisor, their thesis director, or just that particular professor who inspires them to do their best -- remain powerful long after they leave Dartmouth. I have met most of the Class of 2009 as a group and I have talked to many of them individually. They are eager and excited to be here and to be learning with you.
But their experience here encompasses more than what happens in the purely academic realm. Dartmouth is a residential college because so much of learning takes place outside of the classroom. Our students have multiple interests that energize our community. Intercollegiate and recreational athletics are an important part of their education and I regularly tell our coaches that they are teachers, too. They have a particular relationship with their students that enables them to stress the values of teamwork, responsibility, and leadership. We have underlined our commitment to having here competitive athletic programs. The residence halls, the myriad student activities, performances at the Hop and exhibitions at the Hood Museum, speakers, conversations in the dining halls, the work of the Outing Club, Tucker Foundation projects, and so much more, all contribute to a uniquely Dartmouth education.
The Student Life Initiative helped to focus attention on many parts of extracurricular life at Dartmouth and I believe that we have made significant progress in developing options for our students. I also congratulate student and alumni/ae leadership and Dean Larimore and his colleagues for the way they have stepped up to the challenge of strengthening the coed, fraternity, and sorority system. They have done well and have earned the thanks of the board and my own gratitude.
Facilities
It is hard not to be impressed as one walks around the campus with the new facilities that are going up -- the McLaughlin Cluster and the new Tuck Mall dorms will add about 500 beds to address overcrowding and to allow us to bring some students who would like to live on campus but who cannot currently do so. We were exceedingly fortunate in the number of donors who stepped forward to fund these projects. We expect to open the new residence halls next fall -- and it is time, past time, for this to happen.
In the area of student life we are also in the final stages of planning a new dining hall north of campus, and a replacement dining hall at the current Thayer Dining site. The Class of 1953 has provided the funding for the north of Maynard Street facility, which will include space for graduate students. The dining projects will be staggered and will cause some disruption as we will need to complete the north of Maynard project before we begin at the Thayer site.
Also in student life, we have undertaken several athletic projects. Last month we dedicated the Corey Ford Rugby Clubhouse out on Lyme Road, and you will have noticed the extensive renovation work going on at Alumni Gymnasium. Much of that work was necessary because of the humidity problems caused by the Karl Michael swimming pool. But the project will include an extensive new fitness room and we have received some alumni gifts to help with the funding. We are also advancing plans for a new soccer facility and have received a naming gift for the project. And finally in this area, we are working on a new varsity house that will be primarily for the football team but will also have strength training facilities for all varsity athletes as well as much needed meeting space. We expect to replace the Memorial Field and Red Rolfe fields with field turf. Again, we have been extremely fortunate with donors who have stepped forward to fund these projects.
Since 1998 we have completed $26 million of athletic projects and $35 million of residential and dining projects, with donors picking up the vast majority of this cost. There is another $43 million in athletic projects and $171 million in student life projects in planning or construction, with funding sources essentially secured.
In the academic realm we are making good progress on Kemeny Hall, the Haldeman Centers building, and the MacLean Engineering Sciences Center. These will add much needed academic program space and will all be completed during 2006. The Tuck School has plans for a living and learning center and they are moving forward with that aggressively. They already have most of the funding in place and are working on construction design, with the intent of starting construction during the second half of next year. The Medical School is moving ahead with their plans for a translational research building to be constructed near the hospital in Lebanon.
My immediate concerns are to finalize the funding for the life sciences building and the visual arts center. We are already in the planning stage for the visual arts center and will be continuing that process during the coming months. The life sciences building has been a challenge both in terms of fundraising and planning. Our original notion of a shared laboratory facility with the Medical School has evolved, and we are now thinking about a facility on the Hanover campus that will be primarily for the Biology Department, with only some classroom and meeting space for the Medical School. While this remains one of my very top priorities for fund raising, we are also looking at ways to use debt financing and internal resources to ensure that this project moves forward in a timely fashion.
Since 1998 we have completed $154 million of academic construction projects and have plans, including for the professional schools, for about $350 million more. I have asked the Provost to review plans for renovation of the Dartmouth Row buildings and Carpenter Hall. These, along with the other planned projects, will essentially complete the academic renovation.
All told, and including various other administrative and housing projects, we are in the midst of almost $1 billion in construction of new and renovated facilities. While there have been other periods in our history when we have seen significant construction, I don't think Dartmouth has ever done quite so much construction in any one period and certainly not concurrently as we have underway today. And if we ask again, to what end? I would answer that these projects, many of them long-identified and too long-deferred, are critical to the academic, residential, and student life aspects of our students' Dartmouth experience. They have added and will add significantly to the quality of the education we provide and they will help to keep us at the forefront of higher education.
Many of these facilities are funded through the generosity of our alumni and friends. The Campaign for the Dartmouth Experience has so far raised in excess of $610 million toward our goal of $1.3 billion, which not only makes these facilities projects possible but has funded a wide range of projects across campus including professorships, academic programs, financial aid, and other initiatives. I would like to take a moment to thank Vice President Carrie Pelzel and her staff for all the work they do in support of Dartmouth. It is truly extraordinary.
The Administration
If great institutions depend upon strong faculty and students and an outstanding physical campus environment, they also need a strong administrative structure to advance and support the work of the faculty and to maintain the infrastructure that makes a modern campus. Dartmouth is extremely fortunate in its staff -- their dedication and hard work, their professionalism and commitment to our mission and goals, are critical to the quality of the Dartmouth experience. Quite simply, they make our work possible and they deserve to be better recognized and saluted for all they do.
But we do need to ensure that the administration is effective in both the ways in which it communicates across the institution, in its use of resources, and in the way it delivers services that support the academic and residential mission. To this end, I have initiated a broad administrative review. Provost Barry Scherr and EVP Adam Keller will head up the effort. McKinsey and Company, the global management consulting firm, will help us with this, and Deputy Librarian of the College John Crane will serve as the liaison with these consultants. The work is currently underway and I expect to have a report on their recommendations by early in the new year. I see this review as similar to the sorts of academic departmental reviews we undertake all the time -- it will help us to see what we can do better, how we can break down silos, address redundancy, how we can improve services for students and faculty and strengthen internal coordination. Although the review will not cover academic programs, I hope that the faculty will be supportive and helpful where possible.
As we think about how to use our resources prudently, I would spend a few minutes on the current energy situation. We are seeing a 45 percent increase in our fuel costs for the months ahead, which will likely be in excess of $2.5 million. This situation has forced us to look into ways in which we can conserve more energy. Dartmouth has been a leader in conservation and recycling, but we can do even more. EVP Adam Keller along with Sustainability Coordinator Jim Merkle and Director of Facilities Operations and Maintenance John Gratiot are looking for ways in which we can conserve more. Our facilities projects are all designed to meet LEED Silver Standards and will contribute savings as we bring them on line. But we need to do more in the near term. I expect the Resource Working Group to announce some initiatives shortly and also to solicit advice for other ways in which we can conserve energy. I hope that faculty, students, and staff can offer suggestions about what more we can do. It is my plan to contribute some portion of our savings, even though any savings will be against the incremental cost, to a local service agency to help Upper Valley families who are caught short by this situation as well as some financial support for our own lower-paid employees. As we maintain our position as a preeminent institution of higher education, we also need to be a good neighbor and a good place to work.
In closing, I would like to stress the responsibility we all have for Dartmouth and the quality of the educational experience. Dartmouth is what it is today because of the generations of people -- faculty, students, alumni, friends, and staff -- who have taken responsibility for it. We have a shared responsibility to ensure that we meet our goals, sustain our values, and provide the kind of comprehensive educational experience that our students expect and that our society needs. Thank you for the essential part you play in doing this.