Kim outlines strategic initiatives
College President Jim Yong Kim discussed Dartmouth’s long-term strategic initiatives at the General Faculty Meeting on Monday.
By Tom Owen
Published on Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Faculty members must adapt to changing trends in higher education and produce “big ideas” that excite the College community and increase Dartmouth’s international reputation during Dartmouth’s “historical inflection point,” College President Jim Yong Kim said at the General Faculty Meeting in Alumni Hall on Monday afternoon. Kim updated faculty members on the progress of Strategic Planning and urged the approximately 150 attendees to view changes to the College as necessary to improving Dartmouth’s overall competitiveness. Kim said that because the College successfully closed its $100 million budget deficit through recent system-wide cuts, which allows the administration, faculty and the Board of Trustees can now concentrate on non-financial matters. “The conversation has changed from having to think intensively at every meeting about budget issues to questioning where we want to go next,” Kim said.
The College does not necessarily need a monumental shift in values, but does need to stay on the cutting edge of higher education trends, according to Kim. “Strategic planning doesn’t mean we have to do something new, but we have to make it better,” Kim said. “We need big ideas.”
Kim emphasized the College’s need to build on Dartmouth’s strong institutional foundations and publicize its improvements in order to maintain Dartmouth’s prestigious reputation. “If you look at institutions that have been successful recently, like [New York University] or [University of Southern California], they’re not just saying, ‘We’re good,’ but they’re making changes and then announcing it,” Kim said. “We have to find areas where we’re already good, make investments in these places that are signature strengths, and then announce it.”
Kim showed a graph demonstrating the large discrepancy between Dartmouth’s national and international rankings. While Dartmouth was ranked high by U.S. News and World Report’s metrics — earning an 11th-place spot on the magazine’s “best university” list in September — Dartmouth was ranked 99th by the QS World University Rankings and 90th in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Other Ivy League universities remained competitive on the international scale. Harvard University maintained the number two spot on both international lists. “We know we should be here,” Kim said, pointing to the top right of the graph. “But why does the rest of the world think we’re down here?” In the discussion following Kim’s address, Provost Carol Folt said there is a “complicated set of reasons” for the gap between Dartmouth’s national and international rankings. Two of the major contributing factors are Dartmouth’s lack of a “university” title and Dartmouth’s focus on undergraduates, both of which have hurt Dartmouth’s international reputation. The “rising prestige of global and U.S. public universities” is a threat to Dartmouth’s traditional role as a top university, Kim said. Pennsylvania State University’s Schreyer Honors College, for example, is asserting itself as a competitor to Ivy League universities. This is an especially vulnerable time for private institutions, as many state universities are questioning why private universities that invest in private equities should be tax-exempt, Kim said.
Dartmouth will continue to monitor peer universities’ changes, including increasing tuition prices, growth in low-cost pre-professional options and online learning, increased division between research and teaching institutions, and an “arms race” in facilities, courses and international programs.
In the brief discussion following the address, faculty members cited infrastructure for publicizing faculty research and metrics for assessing student learning as two areas that require improvements. Budget issues, the focus of the Oct. 24 Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting, were not mentioned by faculty members in attendance, although Kim began the meeting by briefly summarizing the College’s current financial situation. Although large-scale changes may be necessary in the next decade, alumni must see new developments as part of an institutional history of adaptation rather than as a threat to tradition, Kim said. “I have to understand the history of the institution better than those individuals who might want to bring us backward,” Kim said. “We’re now at another inflection point, but it’s not a radical inflection point. It is actually in the great tradition of Dartmouth College.” Kim summarized important changes that the College has made during its history, explaining that former College President William Jewett Tucker made Dartmouth a modern institution by introducing a scientific curriculum, former College President John Sloan Dickey changed the character of the faculty by emphasizing advanced degrees and research, and former College President John George Kemeny worked to increase the number of female and minority students at the College. These presidents’ contributions demonstrate that Dartmouth is constantly evolving in a positive manner, according to Kim.
The General Faculty is composed of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, as well as the faculties of the Tuck School of Business, the Thayer School of Engineering and Dartmouth Medical School.
On the one hand, the rankings problem sounds like a call to arms for a big P.R. campaign. Such a thing is probably needed.
But when the rankings are mentioned in the context of big historical “inflection points” and large-scale changes, I start to worry. Just what are they thinking?
I’d rather Kim created two or three new professional schools than even thought about adding “University” in Dartmouth’s name.
A quarter of the top 36 QS-ranked schools are not “universities”:
MIT Imperial College London University College London Caltech ETH Zurich Kings College London (University of London) École Normale Supérieure, Paris Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne École PolytechniqueIn the Times listing Caltech is number 1, MIT is 7, and Imperial College London is 8. ETH, UCL, and GIT are in the top 24. If 25% of the top 24 schools are not called “university,” and Dartmouth is hoping to move into the top rank by playing up its historical strengths, its best bet might not be to deemphasize undergrad education or change its name.
By Alumni on Nov 15 | 2:50 am
So it looks like it’s just a matter of upping the PR effort.
By DartBored on Nov 15 | 10:34 am
It’s good to know we can always count on a tradition of horse manure from the Kim and Folt dog and pony show. We need “big ideas” says Kim as he offers none other than someone else’s that have already run their course. Kim says what the College needs is better PR. What the College needs is an administration that fires half of itself and uses that money for the reason it exists. The money has to be used for the students and the academic program. The idea that the leaders of the College are fixated on this fictional ranking and their own cushy jobs shows just how badly the College is being run. Do what’s right, straighten out your priorities in favor of the students and no one will have to think about how to spin it with PR to make it look better than it is. This meeting shows what fools Kim and Folt are and what mistakes the Board of Trustees have made and continue to make by hiring Kim and allowing Folt and Spalding to take over and run the College with no sail and no rudder. The place is floundering around like a sick jellyfish and no captain in sight.
By Anonymous on Nov 15 | 10:40 am
Kim is concerend with “those individuals who might want to bring us backward.” Then he mentions some of the backward Presidents of the College, Tucker, Dickey and Kemeny who made the College what it has been. Kim aspires to become a has been since so far, he never was.
I would like to know who are the individuals who might want to bring us backward and what they might want to bring us backward to. So Kim doesn't tell anything about where the College is or is going and mentions threats to whatever it is that no one including him knows or at least will tell anything about. I can't imagine a weaker, more pathetic presentation if it had been scripted by Kim's "Course in Leadership" mentor. THis meeting could be boiled down to, "Neither I nor any of my top people have a clue what we're doing or are going to do, but we don't want to do what other people who do have an idea of what to do want to do." A masterstroke of palaver. Courtesy of Kim, his admsinistration and the Board of Rustees.By Kim on Nov 15 | 3:25 pm
If the lack of “university” in our title is an issue — why don’t we simply change Dartmouth to Dartmouth University, that encompasses all the grad schools.
I understand that “Dartmouth College,” is a tradition —– so the undergraduate school would remain “Dartmouth College”
This is what Columbia has done — they are Columbia University, but their undergraduate is “Columbia College”
University is the accurate depiction of Dartmouth and all of its graduate institutions as a whole.
By Anon on Nov 15 | 7:32 pm