Harper said age was a factor in her decision to retire.
"I am almost 66, but I hate the word 'retirement,'" she said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "I see it as reenergizing and redirecting."
College President James Wright's upcoming retirement makes it an opportune time to bring a new director to the department, she said.
"A new president will be a perfect opportunity for change to be positive," she said. "It is about new creative ideas."
Harper said the Jan. 16 deadline to take advantage of the College's new retirement incentive plan "was a factor" in her decision to announce her retirement, but that she had been considering retirement anyway.
"I was really thinking about it seriously, especially when Jim Wright announced his retirement," she said.
Over the course of Harper's tenure, skiing, men's soccer, ice hockey and women's lacrosse have seen success, while the so-called flagship sports -- football, men's basketball and baseball -- have struggled.
"Things are different when you are standing outside looking in," Harper said, referring to fans' expressed disappointment. "The real barometer is the students. Players say we are a better football team than three years ago -- an alum sitting somewhere reading The New York Times does not understand that."
Harper pointed to her 2002 decision to cut funding for the Dartmouth swim team as her most difficult act as athletic director. The College administration agreed to allow the team to continue after a 2003 fundraising drive netted more than $2 million, according to a 2003 article in The Dartmouth.
Harper's tenure also coincided with the construction of several athletic facilities at the College, including Chase Field, the Burnham Soccer Field and Sports Pavilion, as well as the Floren Varsity House and the Corey Ford Rugby Clubhouse. Renovations made under Harper's watch include the installation of turf on Memorial Field, the expansion of the baseball field, the resurfacing of Leede Arena and the reconstruction of Alumni Gymnasium, which she called the "highlight" of her career.
The College within the next few months will appoint an interim athletic director who will serve for about one year, Dean of the College Tom Crady said in a press release.
Some students and alumni have theorized that the College will ask head football coach Buddy Teevens to serve as athletic director, but Harper called this speculation "scuttlebutt," adding that people often assume that the football coach will become the new director after the old director retires.
Teevens could not be reached for comment late Tuesday night.
Harper received national attention in 2006 after she publicly apologized for including the University of North Dakota in a hockey tournament at the College.
In a letter published in The Dartmouth, Harper noted that UND's mascot, the Fighting Sioux, would "understandably offend and hurt people within our community." Harper's letter followed a series of controversial incidents on campus, including a themed "Cowboys and Indians" party hosted by the College's rowing team, the disruption of a Columbus Day Native American drum ceremony by two intoxicated students and the College's distribution of the 2006 Alumni Fund Calendar, which featured a picture of an alumnus offering an Indian-head cane to a graduating student.
Her words -- featured in The New York Times, the Boston Globe and Inside Higher Ed -- were nationally publicized, and she said she received angry letters from across the country.
The controversy stemmed mainly from other issues at the College, Harper said.
"It was a symptom for alumni disappointment among people who were not excited about co-education and diversity," she said.
Joe Asch '79, an outspoken critic of College President James Wright's administration, said he hopes the next athletic director will be open to new ideas and innovation.
"I hope [Harper's] retirement signals a changing of the guard of the 30-year veterans," he said.
Harper was hired as the women's lacrosse head coach in 1981, became assistant director of athletics in 1987 and was promoted to associate director of athletics in 1990. She was honored as the National Association of College Women Athletic Administrators Division 1-AA Administrator of the Year in 2000 and was named the ECAC Female Athletic Administrator of the Year in 2001.
Harper also coached the U.S. World Cup lacrosse team and assisted the U.S. lacrosse team that won the world championship in 1982.
