In his inaugural address, College President Jim Yong Kim urged Dartmouth students to "think big" and to "embrace the world's troubles as your own." With these lofty goals on the horizon, it's time the College looks outside of the Hanover bubble and embraces its growth as a leading university.
The first time I noticed the significance of Dartmouth's designation as a "college" rather than a "university" was when I interned for an agricultural research institute in Nairobi. Outside of the United States, the term "college" generally refers to a secondary school, vocational school or community college, rather than an institution offering bachelor's degrees. Referring to my school as "Dartmouth College" therefore detracted from my credibility among my international colleagues. Saying that I went to "Dartmouth" sounded pretentious, as if I expected them to know what Dartmouth was (they rarely did), so I often found myself saying that I attended "Dartmouth University."
I do not object to using the term "college" for U.S. institutions of higher education. However, Dartmouth is, in all but name, a university. U.S. News and World Report ranks Dartmouth among national universities, not among national liberal arts colleges. National universities, according to the magazine's definition, "offer a full range of undergraduate majors, master's and doctoral degrees" and "are committed to producing groundbreaking research."
Kim defines Dartmouth in a similar vein: "Our focus is providing the best possible undergraduate education, with a faculty committed to teaching as well as to research. We also offer world-class professional schools ... and outstanding graduate programs in the arts and sciences," he writes in the "About Dartmouth" section of the College's website. Sounds like a university to me.
The College's faculty is indeed comprised of leading scholars who conduct groundbreaking research. This fact need not be seen in a negative light. Motivated undergraduates are presented with numerous opportunities to participate in the research endeavors of their professors, gaining valuable tools and experience in the process. Undergraduate students may enroll in graduate-level courses and benefit from programs such as the DARDAR health study in Tanzania and the Cross-Cultural Education and Service Program in Nicaragua that would not exist without the partnership of Dartmouth's graduate schools.
The main argument against designating Dartmouth as a "university" is that emphasis on the "college" terminology allows the school to offer exceptional undergraduate teaching. Yet terming Dartmouth a "university" would not take away from the qualities that earned it the top spot in the U.S. News and World Report's rankings for undergraduate teaching.
The weighted criteria for the magazine's rankings in order of importance are: undergraduate academic reputation, faculty resources for 2009-2010 academic year, graduation and retention rate, student selectivity for Fall 2009 entering class, financial resources, graduation rate performance, and alumni giving. Small liberal arts colleges are generally less prestigious than universities, and thus earn lower points in undergraduate academic reputation the most heavily weighted benchmark. They also amass lower levels of financial resources than universities, which translates into less attractive compensation for professors and lower expenditures per student. Dartmouth likely earned the top spot because of its university-like traits, not in spite of them.
Among the top 16 schools in undergraduate education, only two use the term "college" in their names. The remaining 14 are "universities." By embracing its status as a leading university the College would not only retain its high ranking in undergraduate teaching, but also potentially improve upon its less flattering number nine spot in the "best national universities" rankings.
If Dartmouth were to replace "college" with "university" in its name, class sizes would not automatically inflate. Our professors would not receive a subliminal signal to suddenly act aloof toward their undergraduate students. Dartmouth is not special because of its name, but because of its people. Dartmouth need not cling to a name that poorly reflects reality in order to remain distinct from other Ivy League schools all of which use the label "university." The College has become an institution that seeks to shape a diverse group of global leaders, and its name should reflect this growth.
