Reactions to the resignations of Dean of Residential Life Mary Turco and Vice President and Treasurer Lyn Hutton ranged yesterday from optimism that new administrators would bring fresh perspectives to the College to fear they would lose sight of its educational purpose.
Music Department Chair Jon Appleton, a faculty member at the College for 31 years through the tenures of four College presidents, said the five major resignations since September could leave the College without administrators who have memories of its "institutional goals."
"Dartmouth needs institutional memory, and it doesn't have much of that right now," he said.
Appleton said this is not the first time he has witnessed the resignations of several powerful College administrators. After President John Kemeny's inauguration in 1970, there was "a kind of turnover Dartmouth had never had before," he said.
But that turnover was not a problem because Kemeny worked as a professor at Dartmouth for 20 years before he served as its president and "knew what Dartmouth was all about," he said.
Appleton said the transition may also be more difficult today because the faculty is not as involved in College affairs as it was during Kemeny's presidency.
President James Freedman saw the faculty running the College as "kind of a nuisance," Appleton said, although he said Freedman has pursued many of the same reforms the faculty would have.
Mathematics Department Chair and nearly 30-year faculty member James Baumgartner said he is also worried about the administrative upheaval.
The resignations "are really strange," he said. "It came all at once ... I assume it's all coincidence, and I also assume we will survive."
Baumgartner said when a new president is selected, he or she will take some of the responsibility for replacing Hutton and Turco.
But Baumgartner said he is afraid the recent upheaval in the administration may have distracted from the construction of a new math building.
The plans have been "left on the back burner," he said.
"Some people will probably not be too sorry to see [Hutton] go because anyone who's tough-minded is always ready to be replaced in some people's minds," Baumgartner said. "I think she's done a really good job."
However, Philosophy Department Chair Walter Sinnott-Armstrong said that if the process of replacing the administrators who have resigned is "handled well," he is not concerned about the outcome.
This is "an opportunity to bring in a large number of people at the same time who will hopefully be able to work well together," he said. "We don't want to be stagnant."
Case Dorkey '99, the Student Assembly's chair for administrative and faculty relations, also said the transition could have a positive impact on the College, although he called Hutton's resignation a "personality loss."
"I just get more and more excited about a clean slate and new opportunity for the coming year," Dorkey said. "The tension right now is that there's some uncertainty about who will replace [Hutton and Turco]."
Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg said it is unlikely the resignations will handicap the day-to-day function of the College.
"Turnovers are pretty normal in a mature administration," he said. "There are still a lot of us who are staying here."
Provost James Wright also said students should not worry the administrative upheaval will disrupt College life.
"It does leave some more vacancies and openings, but you shouldn't underestimate the strength of all the professionals," Wright said. "The people who day to day keep the institution running are going to remain."
Wright said the resignations of Hutton and Turco were not triggered by Freedman's plans to leave the College.
"There isn't any relationship between these decisions," he said. "They're converging in a way that's coincidental."
But Physics Department Chair Mary Hudson said the "turnover at the top" could have been triggered by Freedman's resignation.
Hudson said she encountered a similar situation while a student at the University of California at Los Angeles. She said when the university's chancellor decided to move on, her thesis advisor, its vice chancellor, departed as well.
"I can understand why [Hutton] would consider moving on to a new position just because it gives a free hand to the new president," she said.
Appleton also said Hutton's departure could have been caused by Freedman's decision to leave Dartmouth.
He said Hutton may have decided to resign because she realized a "new president will want to bring his own person on board."
