Folt was chosen over one other candidate whose name was also forwarded to Wright by a six-member search committee of faculty members chaired by mathematics professor Dorothy Wallace. The committee was obligated to submit two or three names after interviewing several candidates nominated by faculty members.
"There was one other person the committee had recommended also highly and so I met with him," Wright said. "[I] had a conversation with the provost and tried to get it finalized over the weekend because I wanted to get something done before the end of the term."
Wright said the trustees have "had a very good relationship with Dean Folt."
"They were quite enthused at the prospect of her continuing in this role," Wright said, noting that the trustees had "a tremendous regard for the other candidate as well."
The search committee spent approximately two weeks conducting interviews with the finalists for the job before passing the names of Folt and the other candidate, whose name will most likely not be released, to Wright about a week and a half ago. The committee began soliciting nominations and advice from the faculty at the beginning of the term.
Folt, whose current two-year appointment expires at the end of June, was appointed interim dean by Wright in 2004. Her predecessor, cognitive neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga, resigned on the heels of a controversial no-confidence vote by the faculty's committee of chairs and is currently a full-time professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
"She has not treated it as sort of an interim appointment and that is what has made her so good," Wright said about Folt.
Wright commended Folt for the "imaginative ways" in which she has supported the arts and sciences faculty and has come up with competitive compensation packages to attract more professors.
"What we have seen is a pretty good preview of the professionalism, the hard work, the integrity that Carol Folt brings to this position," Wright said.
The dean of the over 400-member arts and sciences faculty is charged with an extensive set of tasks, which include recruiting faculty, approving promotions and overseeing salaries and budgets for approximately 40 departments and academic programs. The dean is also involved in fundraising campaigns and selects other faculty members to serve as associate deans.
Search committee member Jeremy Rutter, a classics professor, said the group received "an enormous amount of input" from the faculty.
"I think it's going to be a great appointment as dean," Rutter said. "We were 100 percent behind the people whose names we passed on to the president -- I mean we were extremely enthusiastic about those people."
This appointment gives Folt more flexibility than she had as interim dean, when she was in a "caretaker position," according to Rutter. He said that although the committee has full confidence in Folt, it remains to be seen how she will address the concerns of her critics.
"One of the key issues is how quickly will Professor Folt be able to make those people who are currently unhappy content? Because that's a job that she really has now," Rutter said. "She may not have had to worry too much about that as a temporary person, but as a permanent person she has to worry about that."
One of Folt's most outspoken critics has been music professor Jon Appleton, who announced last term that he will finish his career at Stanford because of differences with the administration. Appleton, speaking from California, said he was not surprised to hear that Wright chose Folt, whom Appleton said lacks imagination and the confidence of the faculty.
"This is a president who plays everything very safe and as a result of that, the reputation of the institution has declined dramatically during his tenure," Appleton said.
Appleton said that "for the short term, it will take another decade for Dartmouth to recover its academic reputation."
"Good people will leave, no new initiatives will occur, everything will be quiet and safe," he said. "That's what the president wants. For the short term, it's tragic."
The fact that Folt was nominated by the faculty before this appointment may give her more legitimacy than did her 2004 appointment, when Wright consulted with the faculty's Committee on Organization and Policy and Committee Advisory to the President before the decision but did not solicit any formal nominations. This search committee was also chosen in a more democratic way than the one that recommended Gazzaniga in 2002, when the group came exclusively from members of the COP and CAP.
"She's always had the support of the faculty, but obviously this formalizes it in some important ways," Wright said.
Folt, a biology professor, said her top priorities will be to "recruit and retain the very best faculty, improve the learning environment and provide vital support for faculty and students, with special attention to fostering innovative, interdisciplinary and international ideas in research and education."
She is also associate director of the Toxic Metals Research Program, an interdisciplinary program that brings together faculty from Dartmouth Medical School and the arts and sciences, and she received the J. Kenneth Huntington Memorial Prize for Teaching in 1991. She joined the Dartmouth faculty in 1983 after receiving her doctorate at the University of California, Davis and completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Michigan State University's W.K. Kellogg Biological Station.
