When Dartmouth last instituted a presidential search in 1987, the entire ordeal remained shrouded in secrecy for six months.
Throughout the process, the Presidential Search Committee refused to release a time-table of when the next president would be selected and progress was only vaguely described to the Dartmouth community in a series of news briefs.
The search committee began work in November of 1986, a month after former President David McLaughlin announced his resignation on October 6.
The 18-member committee -- composed of seven faculty members, seven trustees, three alumni representatives and one student -- reviewed 615 candidates who either applied for the position or were recommended by an outside source. Chairman of the Board of Trustees Norman McCulloch, Jr. '50 served as the chairman for the search committee.
Throughout Winter term the committee met seven times as a whole, and many more times in smaller groups. A tentative deadline of Commencement 1987 was set by President McLaughlin for the final decision.
By April 3 the committee had conducted 38 interviews and narrowed down the field to nine semi-finalists, all of whom could be defined as academics.
The committee also hired a Chicago-based consulting firm -- Heidrick and Struggles -- to aid in the structuring of the review of candidates in order to make the process more efficient.
During a search, the committee has the option of either recommending one or several candidates to the Board of Trustees, who then make their decision based on the information provided by the search group.
It is highly unusual for the Board to go against the recommendations of the search committee. In 1987, Freedman was the only candidate submitted to the Board on the final ballot. On Monday, April 13, 1987 he was named the 15th president of Dartmouth College following the Trustee's spring meeting in Hartford, Conn.
For McCulloch and others on the search committee, Freedman appeared to be a unanimous and obvious choice.
"The very best are very few in number, and one is so clearly outstanding that the ultimate decision came with great joy and little surprise," McCulloch said at the Trustee announcement.
Many Dartmouth students who had never heard of Freedman -- nor any of the other candidates -- commented that it was hard to form an opinion of him after such limited exposure. But most reacted favorably to his intellectualism and eloquence.
The faculty responded with overwhelming support, mainly reacting to his outstanding record of academics.
The search committee came under intense pressure from the Dartmouth community to replace McLaughlin with someone who could form closer ties to the faculty and the academic departments.
While McLaughlin was relatively popular and successful in fundraising for the College, he was constantly criticized during his six- year presidency for his lack of intellectual concerns. This issue figured prominently in the 1987 search.
McCulloch reported receiving 593 letters from alumni -- 90 percent of whom strongly urged the College to hire someone with a close relationship to the world of academia.
The secrecy of the Dartmouth search resembled searches Princeton and Yale Universities conducted around the same time. Students at Princeton admitted to knowing almost nothing about who was being considered or who was making the decision.
In contrast to previous searches, the 1987 investigation did not consider Dartmouth connection among applicants as a top priority. McLaughlin had been a 1954 graduate of the College, and former President John G. Kemeny had been a math professor before taking the top office. But in the 1987 search, the committee was only looking for the "very best applicant possible."
Freedman was the first president of the College without a previous tie to Dartmouth since 1822.
