William H. King, Jr. '63 said he was "scared to death" as he came up over the hill from White River Junction, Vt. to view Baker Tower rising in the distance for the first time in the fall of 1959. So, if you're a little nervous don't worry -- you might just end up the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College.
Although King's father, Class of 1933, had told him enough to make him feel as if Dartmouth was old news, he was still apprehensive about leaving good 'ole Virginia.
"Very few boys from the South came up to Hanover in those days," King said.
Other insecurities worried him, too. "As a child, I had decided to go someplace else," King said.
But his sister's stories of weekend visits to Dartmouth from Smith College enticed the newly-appointed Chairman of the Board of Trustees back to the Hanover campus. King applied early admission, and the College accepted him. There was no looking back.
Born and raised in Richmond, Va., King wanted to leave the state for his undergraduate degree.
Coming to Dartmouth in 1959 was a considerable change for someone in the South, King said. Dartmouth was predominantly a school attractive to students from the Northeast and Midwest, King said.
The College had a reputation as an outstanding institution, both academically and intellectually, but was considered extremely isolated by comparison to its peer schools in the Ivy League, King said.
Still, great emphasis was placed on teaching and the student-teacher relationships were excellent.
The best years
Upon arriving, King departed on a Dartmouth Outing Club hiking trip -- one of the first ever offered -- and quickly fell in love with the school.
"I met a great group of guys on my trip," he said. "We stayed friends for all four years, and even until now."
Back on campus, King almost immediately became involved in a number of College activities.
An avid athlete, King had played football in high school and decided to join the football team at Dartmouth as a walk on. There were about 150 people in his class that chose to try playing football, of which more than 30 wanted to be quarterbacks -- a few too many, King said.
At Dartmouth, King saw lacrosse -- not a popular sport at the time in the South -- for the first time close-up. The only local lacrosse team was at the University of Virginia, where most of the players were recruited from the North. On a whim, King decided to try the sport in addition to football.
King excelled at both sports, and by senior year he was elected captain of both the football and lacrosse teams.
King was also a member of Theta Delta Chi fraternity and Casque and Gauntlet senior society. King said he just felt "compatible" with the house members that he had met during rush at Theta Delt.
Also, several of his friends decided to all join Theta Delt together, making it an even more appealing decision.
"I never did regret it. It was a great house, a great house," King said.
King's time at Dartmouth was filled with so many memories, "there isn't really a single one [greatest memory], but you think of the experience of those four years and there are multiple memories," he said.
"In my freshman year I took a course from a guy named Harry Bond ... the experience of taking that course and reaching new levels of understanding or intellectual challenge as a young man coming out of my region of the country is something I will never forget," King said. "It was one of the courses that turned me into a reader."
Adding to memories of times spent with friends was a culminating experience to King's four years in sports at Dartmouth. His senior year football team that he captained went undefeated. The team had previously not been undefeated since 1925.
King said that season is one of his happiest and strongest memories.
After Dartmouth
After graduating, King traveled to Athens, Greece to spend a year taking classes offered by the American Embassy from 1963 through the summer of 1964. In return for room and board, the American students in the program taught young men at a local college.
Returning from Greece, King enrolled the following fall at U.Va. to study law, where he spent his next three years. After law school, King joined the law firm of McGuire, Woods, Battle and Boothe, where he still works today.
As all law students do, King said he interviewed with a number of firms, but felt that McGuire offered the best fit.
"Looking back 32 years later, I can say I made the right choice." King said. "It's nice to say that."
Back to his roots
Almost immediately out of school, King begin getting involved with the College. Helping to fund raise and hosting interviews for perspective students, King also joined the Dartmouth Club for his Virginia area, where he was soon elected president.
In 1987, the Trustees of the College appointed King to the Committee on Board Organization. Made up of Trustees and alumni representatives, the committee was given the task of reviewing board members' terms and the process of alumni nomination of trustees over the following year.
King was nominated in 1991 as an alumni candidate for membership on the Board of Trustees. He was then elected for a five-year term by the Board. Currently, King is in the last year of his second five-year term.
King's reasons for wanting to join the Board were personal, "Perhaps it's the overriding feeling of desire to repay the College for all that it gave to me when I was an undergraduate and to ensure that experience is available to many other young men and women."
In 1997, when then-College President James Freedman announced his resignation, King was asked by the Board to lead the search committee that would look for the 16th president of the College.
"It was probably one of the most intriguing exercises that I have ever been through. First of all, the responsibility is unique. To be able to find someone to lead an institution such as Dartmouth, which is one of the leading institutions in this country, is a very formidable task," King said.
After more than six months of searching, one of Dartmouth's own was chosen, although the search was "open and evaluative," King said.
The process examined a number of candidates, none of whom was a clear front-runner, though by the end of the process professor James Wright emerged with the "interests, background and credentials that ensured Dartmouth would move in the direction that the Board wanted Dartmouth to move in," King said.
Of Wright and the Student Life Initiative, King said, "He's the right man in the right place at the right time."
Exciting times as Chair
Replacing Stephen Bosworth '61 as Chairman of the Board last year, King, entering his ninth year as a member, was elected to a one-year term, from 1999 through 2000. In June, he was re-elected to his second and final term.
Board members are usually elected to up to two five-year terms, so he will step down from the Board and the chairmanship next June.
"It is an honor and also a tremendous responsibility," King said.
The Board works with the President day-to-day on a set of issues to "make sure the College is on the right course financially" and to "set the right kind of priorities."
King insists he personally has no specific goals for the College, but that instead the Board as a whole is moving ahead together on a number of priorities, primarily the Student Life Initiative.
"The Chairman is merely reflective of what the Board is -- the Chairman does not have an agenda," King said.
"The Board really operates as one unit," King said. Board members are encouraged to be active at the College.
Under King's leadership, the Board's regularly scheduled meetings -- which are held one weekend every term -- have been dominated by the Initiative. After their meeting this past Spring term, the Board announced the first wave of sweeping changes a result of the Initiative. King personally flew from Virginia to Hanover to make this announcement at a student breakfast at the Hanover Inn.
Because of the small size of the group and the relatively frequent meetings, the members are very close. "You become good friends with the other members."
For the remaining year of his tenure on the Board, King sees the Initiative as the most important task the Board will undertake.
The College, in the years since his graduation, has "developed into an absolutely wonderful institution," King said. "I believe [President] Jim Wright is committed to improving Dartmouth.
"We have the resources to do things that many institutions would like to do, but that we can do. All levels of campus life will improve."
The College is entering new and exciting times, and the Board has a very positive view, King said.
"We've started a process that was engaged in by every facet of the Dartmouth community," he said of the beginnings of the Initiative implementation that will remove all Greek beer taps, place a moratorium on the number of Greek organizations, replace the Coed Fraternity Sorority council judicial system with an overarching college one and move rush to sophomore winter. The Board also plans to experiment with all-freshman housingand increase the focus on world cultures.
"I believe that our path is clear for us to become an even greater institution," King said. "We will draw the best and the brightest and most well-rounded students,"
Advice for first-year students
King has two bits of wisdom to convey to all College newcomers. First, "Get involved in as much as you can because Darmouth offers an incredibly broad range of activities. Test them all."
And second, "Study hard."
Well, one out of two isn't bad.
