To the Editor:
In response to the Friday, April 16 editorial (The Dartmouth, "Verbum Ultimum"), I would like to remind the Editorial Board of The Dartmouth that during the 2001-02 academic year the Student Assembly had a very different outlook on the notion of a teaching and learning center. That year, Student Assembly announced its Undergraduate Teaching Initiative. Aly Rahim '02, who oversaw the effort on behalf of the Student Assembly, gathered extensive information on teaching and learning centers on other campuses. Representatives from Student Assembly then met with me to encourage Dartmouth to do everything possible to establish a center of its own. The committee I appointed to study this issue (which included student representatives) came up with a set of recommendations, and those are being implemented in the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL).
I was disappointed to note that the editorial in The Dartmouth not only disregarded this history, but also failed to understand the role that centers already play on college campuses around the country. DCAL is part of an effort to devote further attention to and to improve the already high quality of teaching at Dartmouth. Two generous donors, R. Stephen Cheheyl and Gordon W. Russell, stepped forward to fund this initiative. Teaching at Dartmouth should be second to none, and one way to help ensure we fulfill that goal is to provide the resources and assistance for talented teachers to be at the top of their profession. The editors of the Dartmouth come out against such efforts, arguing that money spent to improve the quality of teaching is money poorly spent. I find that stance odd.
Dartmouth is in a position to pursue initiatives to strengthen the faculty and their teaching not only through the generosity of donors, but by virtue of the sound management by many people of the College's finances. The budget is in solid shape because of the measures we took over the past two years to bring expenses in line with revenues. We reorganized some departments to improve efficiency and service. This did not involve "deep cutbacks in the library system." Indeed, the acquisitions budget remained level when other budgets across the institutions were reduced, and the library has since seen its funding grow. As we have reviewed the overall College budget, we have reallocated some funds toward priorities. Over the past five years, we have added 27 new tenure-track faculty lines to the Arts and Sciences as we work to bring down our student/faculty ratio. And this is a key goal for the upcoming campaign. These new faculty lines, along with the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning, will help support the central academic undergraduate mission of the College.
