Although William King '63 arrived on campus for the first time in the fall of 1959, his father, Class of 1933, had told him enough to make him feel as if Dartmouth was old news.
"As a child, I had decided to go someplace else," King said.
It was his sister's stories of weekend visits to Dartmouth from Smith College that would entice the newly-appointed Chairman of the Board of Trustees back to the Hanover campus. King applied early decision and was accepted. There was no looking back.
His first impression of the College was Baker Tower rising above the fields from Sachem. "I'll never forget it," King said.
An avid athlete, King had played football in high school and decided to join the football team at Dartmouth as a walk on. There were about 150 people in his class that choose to try playing football, of which more than 30 wanted to be quarterbacks -- a few too many, King said.
King also walked onto the lacrosse team ,and by senior year he was elected captain of both the football and lacrosse teams.
King was a member of Theta Delta Chi fraternity and the senior society Casque and Gauntlet.
In 1991 King was nominated as an alumni candidate for the Board of Trustees. He was then elected a member for a five-year term by the Board. Currently, King is on the third year of his second five-year term.
In 1997, when then-College President James Freedman announced his resignation, King was asked by the Board to lead the search committee that would look for the 16th president of the College.
Even though after more than six months of searching it would be one of Dartmouth's own that was chosen, the search was "open and evaluative," King said.
King was elected to replace Stephen Bosworth '61, ambassador to South Korea, as chairman of the Board of Trustees.
"It is an honor and also a tremendous responsibility," King said. Serving as Board Chair means that his time commitment to the College will increase greatly. The Board works with the President day-to-day on a set of issues, to "make sure the College is on the right course financially" and to "set the right kind of priorities."
King insists that he personally has no specific goals for the College, but that instead the Board as a whole is moving ahead together on a number of priorities, primarily the Student Social Life Initiative.
For the remaining two years of his tenure on the Board, King sees the Initiative as the most important task the Board will undertake.
Though King did not want to comment on specific plans offered in the Task Force Report, he has read the report and looks forward to the Steering Committee's final report, expected to be delivered at the November meeting of the Board. "For me to prejudge [the suggestions] would be inappropriate," King said.
"We do not intend to have this take any longer than necessary," King said, adding that the Board also would "want to make sure we do this with the right kind of thought and listening, so that everyone that wants to talk to us will have the opportunity to do that."
"When you are dealing with something as important as this, to put an absolute date on [receiving the report] would be a mistake. To rush without giving it the kind of necessary consideration that it needs would be inappropriate in the long term needs of Dartmouth."
The College, in the years since his graduation, has "developed into an absolutely wonderful institution," King said. "I believe Jim Wright is committed to improving Dartmouth. We have the resources to do things that many institutions would like to do, but that we can do. All levels of campus life will improve."
New exciting times are starting at the College, and the Board has a very positive view, King said.
King's only regret -- "I just wish my tenure on the Board was just beginning."
