The planned resignations of three top administrators at the end of the academic year leaves the College in a state of transition without the ability to carry out new initiatives.
College President James Freedman, Provost Jim Wright and Dean of the College Lee Pelton will all leave their posts in less than six months.
The knowledge that replacements will soon be taking over all three posts means each of the three lame duck administrators has little time to maneuver outside the present direction of current College policies and projects.
According to Pelton and Wright, proposing new policies at the moment would be very difficult.
Unfinished business
"I can't start any new projects," Pelton said. "I just need to finish the ones that are on my plate."
Each of the administrators continues to work on their major projects -- such as Pelton's alcohol policy recommendations and Wright's Berry Library work -- but because of limited time, they may not complete all of them.
And their successors may decide to terminate some of the unfinished projects.
Freedman said his colleagues will continue to work on policies they have implemented until he leaves, but the next president may or may not continue work on those policies.
Freedman will be working on the search for the dean of Thayer School of Engineering and initiating the search for the new dean of the College, because the president is instrumental in selecting the leadership on the campus.
But the next president will probably choose the future dean of the College from a short list provided by a search committee.
Pelton, too, has projects that will no longer be under his supervision.
"My biggest regret is [the] East Wheelock [cluster] and not being able to see that concept through fully," he said. "It's an important project for me personally."
One project Pelton continues to work on is the recommendations to the alcohol policy as made by the College Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs, whose initial release was met by outrage from a large part of the student body.
With the broad range of areas the Provost oversees at the College, Wright has numerous ongoing projects to keep him occupied until the end of his term, including the Berry library project, a three-year budget plan, numerous needs in residential life and the rugby house project.
It is unlikely Dartmouth will see any major decisions made in the next few months. Other administrators also believe the top executive officers of the College will be reluctant to start new projects.
Associate Dean of the College Janet Terp said if Pelton was interested in pursuing or creating a new project or policy before his term is over, "we would temper pursuing that aggressively."
Smoothing the transition
One benefit of the lack of policy initiative, administrators hope, is that the transition period between the current administrators and their successors will be smooth.
Freedman, Wright and Pelton all said they are continuing to work hard both on their current projects and on smoothing the transition period for their successors.
The three College administrators resigned in the same academic year, although for varying reasons.
As the longest standing president in the Ivy League, Freedman's resignation in September of last year surprised alumni and students.
Freedman, president of the College since 1987, said he wanted to spend more time with his family and free up his schedule from the pressure of being chief administrator at a top academic institution.
Among Freedman's accomplishments so far are: radical changes in the academic curriculum, fundraising for the $50-million Berry library project and the creation of an atmosphere conducive to "creative loners."
In October of last year, Wright resigned amidst a flood of protest from faculty over Freedman's decision to appoint Wright to a full four-year term as provost in August without, they claimed, due process.
Other members of the faculty wrote a petition to the Provost search committee stating their support for Wright for a full four-year term as Provost immediately after Wright resigned from his position.
The Provost is the chief academic officer and is responsible for the majority of the College, ranging from the three graduate schools to the libraries and computing services. He is further responsible for looking at the future of the institution, such as campus expansion.
Two weeks ago, Pelton announced his resignation from the post of dean of the College in order to accept the presidency of Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.
Pelton, dean of the College since 1991, has changed the campus with projects such as the East Wheelock supercluster, which he created in order to integrate intellectual and social life at the College, and the CCAOD alcohol policy recommendations, which should be implemented by the end of his term as dean.
