On Jan. 27, the Board of Trustees voted to establish a School of Graduate and Advanced Studies at Dartmouth. Their vote marks the final step in the approval process of an idea that faculty members have been suggesting for many years and demonstrates Dartmouth’s commitment to research and the important role it plays in the education of all of its students. The mission of the school is to foster postgraduate academic programs of the highest quality, catalyze intellectual discovery and prepare a diverse community of scholars for global leadership. We should all celebrate this important milestone.
For more than 800 Ph.D, M.S., and M.A. students and over 200 postdoctoral scholars at Dartmouth, the new school will be the center of a community of dynamic young scholars, working in high quality programs in collaboration with passionate and dedicated faculty mentors.
It will ensure our graduate students and postdoctoral scholars continue to be trained deeply in the specific areas of their chosen fields, have the opportunity to take advantage of Dartmouth’s great strength in the liberal arts tradition to become excellent communicators, augment their training with best-in-class professional development opportunities and become thoughtful leaders, ready to tackle the world’s most pressing and interesting challenges.
For faculty members from the College, the Geisel School of Medicine, the Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business whose research and scholarly work depend on strong graduate students and postdocs, the value of the school and its support of robust training programs is clear. And for those members of the faculty in departments and programs without graduate students, I know many of you are excited to welcome postdoctoral scholars as colleagues; the school will help you to recruit and train the strongest possible candidates. Also, while the school has no intention of greatly increasing the number of graduate students, or of pushing new programs onto the faculty, please view the school as a foundation upon which you can build innovative new programs. The next steps are up to you, and the school stands ready to help.
Many Dartmouth undergraduates already realize the great value that is added to their Dartmouth experience by the opportunity to interact with and learn from graduate students and postdocs. This is nothing new to Dartmouth. If I might delve into ancient history, I would point out that, way back in 1987 and 1988, I did my undergraduate chemistry thesis research in the laboratory of Dean Wilcox, working with a graduate student mentor (Tim Elgren, now dean of the college at Oberlin College) on a project that led to a first-author publication. Each year, hundreds of undergraduates have similar experiences.
While course lectures will always remain the domain of Dartmouth’s professors, undergraduates also encounter graduate students as teaching assistants in class laboratories, in recitation sections and in office hours. I encourage undergraduates to get involved with research and to get to know our graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. To this end, it is exciting that a number of graduate students, as well as professional students, will live in the new house communities. Seek them out, as they can offer advice, help you with your classes and perhaps demystify a compelling option for the next step of your academic journey.
Many people have invested much time and thoughtful effort to make this school a reality and have helped design it to be as strong as possible: students, staff, senior administrators, faculty colleagues from across Dartmouth who offered advice and constructive criticism, members of several strategic planning working groups and the members of the task force that shaped a vision for the school. Like all great endeavors, the School of Graduate and Advanced Studies is made stronger by the diverse input, ideas and opinions of the community, which will ensure its role as a thriving and integral part of Dartmouth’s future.
