In a series of departures that eventually led to a high level inquiry, nine of the Admissions Office's 14 officers resigned last year, following a chain of events that former staffers say reflected poor management and a failure to promote people of color.
While four of the nine departures were for benign reasons -- such as the retirement of one person and the decision to attend graduate school of another -- the unusually large exit was accompanied by widespread frustration that promotions were handed out haphazardly and that there was miscommunication between management and employees, former staffers say.
The series of departures left only one member of the minority recruitment team in Dartmouth's admissions, the only person of color to stay in what was and continues to be one of the most racially diverse offices on campus.
An investigation by The Dartmouth found that only one minority officer was promoted between Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Karl Furstenberg's 1990 arrival and the summer of 2000, despite his otherwise success in heightening the diversity of the student body in that period. A source close to the administration confirmed The Dartmouth's figure.
In an interview, Furstenberg said that half of the promotions in his office have been of minorities. But inquiries made by The Dartmouth to admissions officers who worked in the office as far back as 1990 confirm that, until this academic year, only one person of color was promoted beyond the level at which she was hired. During the same time, at least five whites moved up the office hierarchy.
Furstenberg declined to cite any examples to the contrary, saying, "It's just not appropriate for me to do so."
The allegations that the Admissions Office may have mishandled diversity concerns come at a time when Dartmouth has pledged a wholehearted commitment to multi-culturalism, inaugurating such projects as the World Cultures Initiative and moving to censure Greek organizations that act offensively. As part of that effort to disassociate itself from its white hamlet image, the College has said it wants to diversify the institution at all levels.
Promotional and other complaints about the Admissions Office's management practices were made known to several branches of the administration, including the Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Office, the Provost Office and Human Resources, which conducted exit interviews with many of the departing officers.
At one point last year, members of the minority recruitment team alerted the Director of Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Ozzie Harris about their concerns, asking him to moderate a meeting between them and Furstenberg. Soon after, an inquiry was formally launched at the request of College Provost Susan Prager, resulting in some structural changes and a call for enhanced communication in the office.
"There were really serious communications issues. I think that some very valuable employees were feeling seriously undervalued and I find that regrettable," said Prager, who initiated the inquiry process after learning that five people of color were leaving the office. "The fact that we weren't able to make that better is a failure of the institution."
The inquiry process began with a memo sent by Director of Human Resources Christine Chevalier to departing admissions staffers requesting that they participate in exit interviews. That memo, parts of which were made available to The Dartmouth, said that both Prager and Furstenberg were interested in finding ways to improve the office.
Since then, the director of minority recruitment position has been upgraded to a more senior level post and the Provost Office has encouraged the Admissions leadership to communicate more effectively with officers. Specifically, the leadership has been asked to make sure people are more informed about their job expectations.
Although no affirmative action complaints were ever filed, some former admissions officers say they would have done so had they anticipated what they describe as inaction on the part of the administration. These sources say that while they were promised feedback on the exit interviews, they have yet to be informed of meaningful change in the office.
Prager said that her plans to issue a formal report were delayed when she asked Human Resources to conduct further interviews, but that she intends to file a report before she departs at the end of this academic year.
Furstenberg said late last night that five people of color have been offered promotions since 1998, but he didn't provide any more details.
"It's about when he asked them," a source said when presented with the above information, suggesting that some of those offers may have been made after people had already announced their decisions to resign. "The question is why people didn't take them."
The Admissions Office has a five-tier hierarchy. At the top is the dean, followed by the director, the senior associate, five associates directors and then six assistant directors.
Although admissions is a typically high turnover profession, only rarely does such a large proportion as nine out of 14 officers leave an office in a single year. That unusually high exit rate was what initially alarmed Prager, she said.
Many of the admissions officers who left say there was a discrepancy between the office's rhetoric of embracing diversity and the reality of how diversity was addressed internally.
"During my time in the Admissions Office, I questioned the office's commitment to diversity -- there is a difference between saying it is a priority and showing that it is a priority. I also felt the same concerns about the institution as a whole," a former officer said.
But Furstenberg said he is indeed dedicated to furthering diversity -- a claim supported by the jump in the proportion of students of color from 19 percent to 23.2 percent of the student body in his first year at the College. Furstenberg has also earned a strong record in raising money for financial aid and attracting positive publicity.
"Diversity is the highest priority for the office and for the institution," he said. "In terms of the record of hiring and promotion and advancement of people of color in the admissions office, we have been a leader on campus."
Many of those who left the Admissions Office last year departed with bitter memories. They say they were treated unfairly, sometimes humiliated at meetings, and that they experienced few opportunities for professional recognition.
The huge turnover in admissions personnel may or may not have impacted the student recruitment process this year, a period in which Dartmouth was one of only two Ivy League schools to see a drop in the number of applications it received. The Class of 2004 had 10,188 applicants, but that figure fell by roughly five percent to 9,719 for the Class of 2005.
But even with Dartmouth's significant drop in applications, the preliminary matriculation rate of 53 percent was higher than in any other recent year. And the proportion of students of color in the Class of 2005, although slightly less than the Class of 2003, is among the highest in College history.
Tensions centering on the Admissions Office's commitment to diversity had been brewing for some time, according former staff members who spoke to The Dartmouth. But they escalated two years ago, when a white male and a white female in the office were promoted over a number of potential candidates, including minority ones, despite the apparently comparable admissions experience and work devotion of other officers.
"When promotions came around, people were puzzled," a former officer said. "People didn't understand the rationale and no efforts were made to explain."
Furstenberg declined to comment on individual cases, but said he was aware that some admissions officers were surprised about his decisions and that he tried to explain. His also said his decisions have always been made on the basis of merit.
Those and other complaints about the quality of management seemed to prompt the mid-year departure of then director of minority recruitment Natalie Herring, the timing of which is unusual in a profession where each admissions cycle starts and ends in the summer. While Herring told The Dartmouth that she left because of family reasons, several close friends and former colleagues say Furstenberg's decision to make her director of minority recruitment while not promoting her from the assistant director level -- despite the added responsibility of her new post -- was an important factor in her departure.
"If your director of minority recruitment is an assistant director, that person's superiors are all the associate directors, the senior associate, the director and the dean. That's a lot of people to go through to make a decision," a source said.
After an admissions cycle in which the office was understaffed by about two people and many minority officers felt that management was unresponsive to their concerns, seven other staffers announced their decisions to move on, each for different reasons, leaving only one person of color in the office.
Some of the nine officers who left that year say they had positive experiences working in the office.
"I had a great eight years working in the admissions office and I liked the people I worked with and liked the people I worked for," said Steve Silver, a Caucasian who left admissions when he was offered the directorship of the International Office.
But many others left in part because they felt that personal favoritism played a role in determining who moved up the administrative hierarchy. Those who were close friends with Furstenberg were quickly promoted and sometimes allowed to place their travel responsibilities on other staffers, these sources say.
Furstenberg said favoritism plays no role in his personnel choices. "Promotions are always made on the basis of merit absolutely," he said.
Critics of the office's promotion policy allege that the admissions leadership had a formula for moving people from the assistant to associate director level that it applied unevenly, a charge that Furstenberg denies. While officers were generally required to work four years in the office before moving beyond the entry level, other officers were allowed to count experience at other institutions while some weren't, according to some former admissions officers.
But Furstenberg said that he weighs officers' backgrounds fairly. "Peoples' experience before coming to Dartmouth is always viewed in terms of the equivalency in terms of the work here. The cases are viewed individually in a thoughtful and thorough way," he explained.
Though Furstenberg has a very strong record of hiring minorities -- a record so strong that about half the office has been staffed by non-whites in recent years -- only rarely were people of color promoted.
Christine Pina, an African-American, is the only minority in the office who was promoted between 1990 and this academic year, The Dartmouth learned. Pina said she enjoyed her experience at Dartmouth and left in 1998 only because she was ready for graduate school.
"I always felt very supported in the work that I did," she said. "Karl Furstenberg is the best person I've ever worked for. I think he has a tremendous interest in diversity and I certainly saw that on a daily basis."
Since last year's mass departure, two people of color were given high ranking admissions jobs, developments which some have identified as quick fixes and some see as positive changes.
Jim Washington, an African-American, was named to a senior level position in the office. Washington, now the director of minority recruitment and a senior associate, came to Dartmouth from the University of New Hampshire, where he was the head of admissions.
The move to make the director of minority recruitment a senior level position was a direct response, many say, to the lingering criticism that diversity can't be a priority without institutional muscle behind it, and came at the suggestion of Prager as well as others. Under Herring, the director of minority recruitment position was held by an assistant director.
In addition, this spring marked the promotion of an Asian-American woman, Kiyoe Hashimoto, from assistant director of admissions to associate director. Hashimoto came to Dartmouth at the start of the Class of 2005's admissions cycle from a post in the Colgate University admissions office.
But critics say this year's personnel changes were instituted only because of the flurry of criticism that the departures generated and that they have not been sufficient.
Furstenberg denies those charges, saying that people of color enjoy sufficient advancement opportunity.
When asked if he harbors any regrets about his promotion decisions of the last 11 years, he said: "I really have no comment. There have been a wide variety of people and circumstances. That's why I have no comment."
