Kornberg: Wail to the Chief
By Josh Kornberg, Staff Columnist
Published on Monday, March 28, 2011
I met College President Jim Yong Kim last spring. He’s surprisingly tall, as perhaps many already know, with eyes that sparkle like obsidian and a soothing voice that sounds as if primed by the constant sucking of mentholated lozenges. He’s serious and professional and warm and charismatic, the kind of person who is able to inspire college students to work harder and think in ways we couldn’t on our own. I remember wanting to be exactly like him.
Since then Kim administration has overseen the overhaul of the College’s dining system, the closing of the river docks, the replacement of Blitzmail with Microsoft Online Services, the hiring of an unpopular graduation speaker and an increase in administrative turnover. Additionally, Dartmouth is now the second most expensive school in the Ivy League. There are very few new academic programs, star professors or alternative social scenes to show for it. Kim’s administration, of course, has had a few successes — the new house for Alpha Phi sorority comes to mind — but most of them either do not benefit undergrads directly or are so marginal that my mentioning them might only serve to remind you they ever occurred at all.
My biggest problem with Kim’s presidency, though, is not his policies themselves (although I do think they are counterproductive), but the undemocratic way in which he implements them and the haughty speeches he makes to defend them. I can grudgingly accept an inferior email client. I just can’t accept having to do so essentially because the administration says so. It’s Kim’s new habit of acting more like a salesman than a polished leader, of devising policies first and trying to convince us to buy them second, that I’ve found saddening.
A salesman is a lot like a leader. Both are likeable, persuasive and can get us to do things that we wouldn’t otherwise. The key difference is that a successful salesman is ultimately motivated by self-interest while a successful leader is ultimately selflessness. A salesman stands to profit regardless of whether he sells a good product. A leader, on the other hand, either subordinates his own interests beneath group interests, or equates the two because they are synonymous. A salesman is someone you believe. A leader is someone you believe in.
I’ll use the Dartmouth Dining Services “pay per meal” plan to illustrate my point. Kim justifies the plan on the grounds that “only 5 percent of students end the term with more than $10 in their accounts.” This explanation falls short of addressing the underlying issues of why the situation is the way it is and what is a smarter way of fixing it. It’s clear that students binge to avoid losing DBA at the end of certain terms and extravagant employee fringe benefits could be cut so food prices are lower. Failing to acknowledge these issues is disingenuous, unfair and antithetical to putting group interests (designing a good meal plan that students like) ahead of individual interests (designing a meal plan so that it looks like good administrative work is being done).
Kim tells students that their “critiques are very important.” Yet he barely involved us in the meal plan decision-making process. The only student input came from the 1953 Commons Advisory Committee, which consisted of just eight students and met with Director of Dining Services David Newlove just once all of Fall term. Kim’s speeches have become refined slogans iterated so frequently that they have gone from useful to cliché to white noise. Students either get angry hearing them, or worse, they roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders and decide next time they’ll go the gym instead of listening.
This is the real problem with Kim’s presidency: although Kim came here to cultivate student leaders and teach them that the world’s problems are our problems, the way he treats us has underscored the defeatist notion that it’s easier not to even get involved.
I want the president who I thought I saw a year ago. The president who lives in Hanover year round. The president who saves millions of lives through a superhuman unwillingness to settle for solipsism or cynicism. The president who shows us the possibilities of being human. The president who reminds us, in a world saturated with irony and hatred, how important it is to believe in heroes.
Relax. Imperious Kim is only using Dartmouth as a stepping stone to a higher position in the medical field. Feelers are out from the Obama administration to appoint him the new Secretary of Health and Human Services. Some Dartmouth trustees have already urged him to move on.
By Anonymous on Mar 28 | 11:03 am
Well-said. Seems like JYK forgot his training as an anthropologist and tried to impose his own notions of “what’s best” on Dartmouth. I don’t see him as entirely egotistical or as much of a salesman. Rather I think he fundamentally misunderstands 18-22 year olds and especially Dartmouth COLLEGE faculty and students.
By ellie on Mar 28 | 12:21 pm
Why is The D not allowing comments today?
By Joseph C. Asch 79 on Mar 28 | 1:16 pm
brilliant as usual. i hope kim sets aside some more time for lunch this spring.
By Anonymous on Mar 28 | 1:29 pm
I love the throw-away phrase about extravagant employee benefits. Maybe some more detail next time?
By Anonymous on Mar 28 | 3:05 pm
Yet, John Mathias, president of the Association of Alumni, says, “Dartmouth has never been better”. It seems that the alumni leadership is out of the loop.
By DartBored on Mar 28 | 3:05 pm
This article is very well-written, but falls short of saying what everyone is thinking: Jim Kim should step down. He has done a poor job as president and a regime change is necessary. Not only has he hit rock bottom at Dartmouth, he has taken a shovel and tried to dig even more!
By The Real Story on Mar 28 | 5:25 pm
Dear Josh,
You may find the Following link useful. It is to the lunch menu at the Hanover Inn where you have likely already been invited to have lunch with President Kim as he attempts to make you feel more special than a 14 girl at a Chi Gam dance party and then throw you away like a used condom.
http://www.hanoverinn.com/pdf/Lunch_Menu_Winter_2011%28no_pricing%29%5B1%5D.pdf
I recommend the Fettuccini Pasta with Grilled Shrimp
By Travis W. Blalock on Mar 28 | 5:39 pm
Dear Mr. Blalock,
I agree with the first part of your comment. More importantly however, I’ve been to the Hanover Inn and ate the shrimp fettucine. Personally I found it undercooked and a bit too salty. I would recommend the crusted cod.
By David R. Lumbert II on Mar 28 | 5:49 pm
Bring back Jim Wright and responsible Dartmouth Governance. End this Kim attempt to turn Dartmouth into something like Darvard or DROWN.
By The Whole Truth on Mar 28 | 8:22 pm
He completely underestimated the job. His personality has gotten him through most tasks until this one. He relies on the wrong people. He wants to live the college life he never had. He’s used to rescuing suffering populations and being a hero. We are not so easily moved. Agree that lunch offer to come.
By just sayin’ on Mar 29 | 9:20 am
Look, I agree whole-heartedly with the criticism of the new meal plan, but beyond that this article just lacks substance. It doesn’t explain how Microsoft Online Service is inferior to blitzmail, it doesn’t mention that the swim docks will most-likely be back up by this summer and it doesn’t even name the alleged “unpopular” graduation speaker. The salesman analogy is weak; of course an administrator is going to try to defend the policy decisions of the administration and if you don’t think that our national leaders aren’t also salesmen then you haven’t been paying too much attention to the national health care debate. But the main problem I have with this article is that it’s purpose seems to be to perpetuate the defeatist notion that it talks about. Yes, the administration should be mindful of student opinion and should make a better effort at bringing us to the table, but to say that this is the only way we will be motivated to take leadership into our own hands is paradoxical. These are our problems, and if we really take issue with some policy then we should take action regardless of whether we have an invitation to be involved. Bemoaning about our apparent powerlessness isn’t going to begin to solve our troubles.
By Brian Giunta on Mar 29 | 2:43 pm
Well, most of the column is decent. One thing in particular shows a lack of understanding and disrespect for both sides of a free choice transaction, that is sales. No salesman writes the order and then tells the client what and why they bought later. Josh isn’t describing a salesman here, he is describing theft and a criminal. Josh is also wrong about the motivation of a successful salesman. A successful salesman’s first and last thought is his client, if he takes care of his client, his client will take care of him, either with the purchase, the reason why he didn’t or did buy, which is, frequently more important than the sale. Both client and salesman are trading information and coming to an agreement that is a gain for both parties, otherwise there is no transaction. If the client is unhappy with the product or salesman or the company or the price or a certain feature, the salesman tells his company and perhaps the company makes adjustments and changes to the product, terms, personnel or other variables. The entire situation is entirely free, neither party has any power over the other to force anything to happen. Sales people who misrepresent themselves, their company, product, price or anything else will not be sales people for long. The free market sees to that. A salesman is someone you believe in because he proves it. Leaders would do well to do the same.
By Betty Boop on Mar 30 | 8:37 pm