The search continues for a faculty associate and part-time dean to staff the East Wheelock "supercluster," which will undergo a $600,000 renovation as part of the Dartmouth Experience program.
The Dartmouth Experience program is "an attempt to unite intellectual activities with socializing and to suggest that those two can be one and the same," Dean of the College Lee Pelton told The Dartmouth last month.
The faculty associate will be chosen from among the College's tenured faculty, said Pelton, who chairs the search committee.
The faculty associate, who will live in the white house adjacent to the dorms, will be responsible for organizing intellectual social events with a $25,000 programming budget. The faculty member will be relieved of half of his or her teaching load.
"It's not a position, in the sense of a dean's position," Pelton said. "We're asking a member of the Dartmouth faculty to provide a service, and part of the arrangement will be half-time relief from teaching."
Although Pelton declined to provide a specific timetable for the decision, he said it will be made "as soon as possible."
"We're having conversations with the faculty who have expressed interest," he said.
The faculty associate will require "an interest in the students, and ... an interest in providing opportunities for students to meet with faculty and distinguished guests of the College outside the classroom," Pelton said.
A different search committee, chaired by Dean of First-Year Students Peter Goldsmith, is looking for someone to fill the half-time position of "cluster dean."
The dean will not live in the supercluster, but will have an office in Brace Commons, once it is renovated, according to Pelton's proposal. The dean will work 20 hours per week as an advisor to cluster students.
"It would entail approximately 20 hours a week," Goldsmith said. "And the additional time that deans tend to put in on weekends and evenings in order to be a part of the students' lives."
The committee has placed advertisements in the Valley News, the Burlington Free Press and the College's Human Resources job flyer, Goldsmith said.
The committee is conducting "a local search," Goldsmith said. "The assumption is that people don't move out of their area and into a new one for a half-time position."
Goldsmith said the committee will probably reach a final decision in June.
The advertisements stated the committee would begin reviewing applications April 15, Goldsmith said.
"It's sort of a deadline," he said. "But it's common when advertising job positions to set a date on which we will begin reviewing applications, so that we will have the opportunity to review anything that comes in after that date."
