Dean of Faculty James Wright said he looks forward to getting in touch with students during the six months in which he will serve as acting president during President James Freedman's sabbatical beginning next January.
"One of the things that I will have to do and look forward to doing in the brief period I'll be serving as acting president is spending some time with students," he said.
Wright came to the College in 1969 as an assistant professor of history and was named department chair in 1989, the same year Freedman appointed him dean of faculty. But he gave up teaching because he thought his new position would prevent him from devoting time to his students.
"I quickly realized that I would end up treating my class sort of like my 10 o'clock appointment and that's no way to teach here," he said. "It requires more than that, more time, more availability and more accessibility than I could've been able to provide students."
"I may have indulged myself by being able to sit down with a group of students for four hours a week, talk to them about things and feel good about that, but I think they could do far better than taking a class with somebody who just doesn't have the time to provide - so I haven't taught and I miss that," he said.
Although Wright's position mostly necessitates contact with administrators and faculty , he has shown a particular concern for student life.
"Dean Wright has a comprehensive overview of the entire College, including the student affairs area, and has paid particular attention to residential life," Dean of Residential Life Mary Turco said.
Turco and Wright both sit on the Enrollment Committee, which examines the impact matriculation numbers have on the College. "He's very concerned about the welfare of students. He will continually ask me how specific decisions will effect students," Turco said.
In April 1987, Wright chaired a committee charged with the task of reviewing student life that issued a report calling for the College to reshape its social atmosphere.
The Wright Report recommended reducing both the role of alcohol and the influence of fraternities and sororities on campus social life. The report also suggested building an expanded student center.
Most recently, Wright chaired the curriculum review committee that proposed broad changes to the Dartmouth's educational program. Although the College hoped to have the new curriculum in place for the Class of 1997, the funding was not available and Wright postponed the implementation for one year.
Wright himself worked on the fundraising to insure that the new curriculum would be ready for the Class of 1998.
Wright chaired a similar committee from 1979 to 1980, but while its recommendations to rethink the honors program and institute a non-Western requirement were heeded, other recommendations of the Committee on Curriculum and Year Round Education were not approved by the faculty at large.
"We brought in a series of recommendations and were not totally successful," he said. "It was partially through that that I was willing to try again when we talked about setting up another committee." Wright said it is unusual for a dean of the faculty to head such a committee.
But his experience and reputation in many areas of the College have preceded him. "He is a kind and unusual man who will bring tremendous energy to the post," Freedman said of Wright's position as acting president. When asked to point to one attribute which will make him right for the position, Freedman said "good, sound judgment."
Wright said he sees the temporary position as a chance for him to deal with a different and bigger set of administrative issues. "Anything I handle here will certainly be on the plate across the street."
Although he welcomes the responsibility, Wright has no plans to pursue any issues that are not already in motion.
"I think it is presumptuous for an acting president to stress anything other than those things that the President and the Board of Trustees and the institution has been stressing ," he said. "I certainly wouldn't move across the street for a few months next year and think it is an opportunity for me to address my own agenda. I think the agenda is here and my responsibility is to work with the faculty, administration and students to try to pursue that agenda."
Freedman said, "I am confident that Dean Wright will continue with all the programs we are working on right now."
Dean of the College Lee Pelton said he is pleased with Wright's temporary appointment. "He knows students well, both inside and outside the classroom," Pelton said.
Wright received his undergraduate degree and doctorate at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and came to Dartmouth in 1969 to teach American history.
"I came to a different place in many ways," Wright said. A member of the last group of faculty hired by John Sloane Dickey, the College's 12th president, Wright has served under four different administrations.
"The Dartmouth of President Dickey was smaller, all-male, a less diverse place and it functioned on a regular calendar so people were here together for the four years," he said.
During Wright's first year and Dickey's last, changes were already under way, according to Wright.
"The year I came here was the first year there were female exchange students. This was a step toward fundamentally changing the nature of Dartmouth," he said.
"John Kemeny built upon, and when I say built upon I don't mean that someone else was the originator and he only did the follow-up, because John Kemeny's role was obviously much richer and more complicated than that, but I think he did build upon some issues that President Dickey had established here, as did President McLaughlin and certainly Jim Freedman," he said.
Wright served one term as Associate Dean of Faculty for the Social Sciences from 1981-1985 and then returned to his first love, teaching. Although he commenced his second term as Dean of Faculty last year, Wright said that this is his last term in this position.
"I am certainly a two-term dean," he said. "I will go back to teaching history in 1997."
