Acting Assistant Dean of First-Year Students Stephanie Hull will continue her position on a permanent basis beginning July 1.
The assistant dean of first-year students' job is essentially two-fold, said Dean of First-Year Students Peter Goldsmith. The assistant dean counsels and advises freshmen in all matters affecting academic performance. She also runs the College's Intensive Academic Support program.
Hull replaced Tony Tillman last May on an interim basis when Tillman resigned to become the executive director of student life at Drew University in Madison, N.J.
Hull said she has always wanted become an administrator.
"I've had a long-standing interest in administration, so I've been looking for opportunities since I came to Dartmouth," she said.
Goldsmith said the committee chose Hull because she "has a clear and well-informed sense of the central, core activities of the College -- teaching, learning and scholarship."
The College selected Hull from four applicants whom the College flew to campus for interviews, Goldsmith said. The four applicants were chosen from the group of 280 people who originally applied for the position, he said.
"She has an intuitive ability to strike a balance between student advocacies and her role as an administrator," Goldsmith said.
Goldsmith said he thinks Hull will make an excellent assistant dean because she is able to relate well to students and is very good at talking to them about their problems.
"Dean Hull has a special capacity for enabling students to explore the many sides of their identity on their own terms and to resist the imposition of identities based upon broad categorical assumptions," he said.
Goldsmith also said Hull's scholastic achievements factored into her selection.
"She's a person of considerable academic accomplishment," he said.
Before becoming acting assistant dean of first-year students, Hull was a French professor.
Hull said the first item on her agenda, now that she is the permanent assistant dean of first-year students, is to prepare for the arrival in September of the Class of 2000.
She said this preparation includes working with the undergraduate advisors in planning Community at Dartmouth Night, which she will host in addition to working throughout the summer with students involved in the planning of freshman orientation.
"I'm really looking forward to working with the '98s" over the summer to plan orientation week, she said.
Goldsmith said now that Hull is a permanent dean, one of the first things he has asked her to do is to undertake a survey of the IAS program.
The IAS is a series of courses in English, Chemistry and Mathematics intended for freshmen "with weaker secondary school preparation," according to a memo Goldsmith wrote announcing Hull's hiring.
The IAS classes -- Mathematics 1 and 2, English 2 and 3, and Chemistry 3 and 4 -- go at a slower pace than the regular introductory courses in those subjects and are taught in conjunction with intensive tutoring from upperclass students, he said.
