The imminent departure of our eminent President, James O. Freedman, may be old news to many by now, but I think it worth revisiting. After all, it's not every day (not even every decade) that one gets to reflect on a departing president of Dartmouth and to look forward to an arriving new one.
By the time he announced his decision to step down from the helm of Dartmouth, President Freedman had become the longest-sitting President in the Ivy League, with eleven years behind him already. The decade plus of the Freedman presidency has been one unlike any other in Dartmouth's last century, and possibly, history. Many students are quick to deride President Freedman as being out of touch with students and as trying to impose his "Harvard-esque" desire for creative loners on the College on the Hill. Less often does one hear of the positive aspects of his presidency.
When President Freedman took the reins of Dartmouth eleven years ago, the College was seen by many outsiders as a haven for drunken fraternity brothers in which they were allowed to prey on women as they pleased, treat minority students with indifference or contempt, and gain an Ivy League diploma while concentrating primarily on their social, sexual, and athletic enterprises, rather than on intellectual growth. This image of Dartmouth has been dramatically altered as President Freedman and his aides have strived to raise the level of intellectual discourse on the campus. Many point to the infamous "creative loner" speech as evidence of President Freedman's desire to destroy the Dartmouth social system and replace it with one in which students stayed in their rooms and read every Friday and Saturday nights. I submit that President Freedman has not attempted to do anything of the sort. What he has successfully done has been to foster an environment at Dartmouth which accepts students who get more pleasure out of the cello than the frat basement and recognizes the contributions they make to the betterment of the College. It is this inclusiveness, not the alleged exclusively intellectual environment, which President Freedman has sought.
Dartmouth has become a much more welcoming place for women, for students of color, for non-Christian students, and for students of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities in the time that James Freedman has led it. There are still many parents, teachers, and college counselors who caution women and minority students against applying to Dartmouth because we are seen as an intolerant, inhospitable place for students who are not white, Christian, men from New England. But the same group of people ten years ago numbered many, many times what it does today. President Freedman's leadership has effectively diminished the group of people afraid of sending their students to Dartmouth because he has fostered a more accepting environment here for everyone.
One of the central tasks to the job of college president is that of fund-raising. One can hardly dispute the fact that President Freedman has been one Dartmouth's most successful presidents in this realm, if not solely the most successful. The Will to Excel Campaign he oversaw added over $550 million to the College's funds, endowment and otherwise, and pushed the endowment over $1 billion. The people President Freedman has hired and designated to manage that endowment have seen to it that that principle makes 23% annual interest (or over $70,000 per hour) for additional funds.
The above is not to say that President Freedman is above criticism in the execution of his office. While he has held, and continues to hold, regular open office hours, he is not as visible a public figure in Hanover as some of his predecessors were. Unfortunately, cold, snowy mornings haven't yet found President Freedman on Main Street helping the merchants there to shovel their storefronts. I have not heard of anyone catching sight of him riding his bicycle across campus on the way to or from Parkhurst. Nor have I been informed of any reports of President Freedman stopping into one of his Webster Avenue neighbors' houses for a beer and a chat. The President is, by nature, a studious, quiet, and soft-spoken person, and his personality does not fit any of the above activities which may have been better suited to Hopkins or Kemeny. Still, it would be nice to run into him on the Green occasionally or entering Memorial Field for a Big Green football game.
Taken as a whole, President Freedman's decade of leadership has done much for our beloved campus. He has aided in bringing into our midst persons of more diverse backgrounds, philosophies, and interests. He has re-affirmed and solidified Dartmouth's place as one of the nation's top institutions of undergraduate study. He has overseen the recruitment and hiring of top-notch faculty to instruct us and made sure that Dartmouth remains in financial standing comfortable enough to ensure need-blind admissions into the next millennium. I agree with last year's Student Assembly President, Jon Heavey '97, and this year's President, Frode Eilertsen '99 in their affirmation that the Freedman presidency will be remembered as one of Dartmouth's greatest periods of growth and development.
In searching for a successor, I can only beg the trustees to make students an active part of the process. It is time for another Dartmouth President who is widely accessible to the student body and is comfortable interacting with them in informal situations. It is imperative that the next President of Dartmouth be someone committed to working with the student body towards the improvement of the College, someone who realizes that student body's voice must be heard and heeded in the decisions which run Dartmouth. In this spirit, let us hope that "Jimmy O" is not succeeded by another familiar Jimmy...