Although none of this year's five Montgomery Fellows elected to remain on campus for more than a few days, the Montgomery Endowment continues to search for fellows that will stay in residence for an entire term.
Renowned anthropologist Richard Leakey, the most recent fellow, arrived on campus earlier this month, but only stayed for three days.
Other recent visitors, among them cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Polish politician and activist Lech Walesa and playwright Tom Mac Intyre, all remained on campus for a week or less.
Despite this year's lack of term-long visitors, Director of the Montgomery Endowment Barbara Gerstner said she remains committed to hosting fellows for extended periods of time.
"The Endowment was created for most fellows to stay varying lengths of time," Gerstner said. "Still, our goal is to try to get people for a full term."
The Montgomery Endowment was established in 1977 by Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Montgomery '25 to "provide for the advancement of the academic realm of the College" and has since focused on bringing accomplished academic and non-academic figures to Dartmouth.
These individuals -- called Montgomery Fellows -- generally spend anywhere from several days to a term on campus, often teaching courses, holding lectures and interacting with students and faculty.
Gerstner attributed the difficulties in obtaining such noted figures for lengthy periods of time to their busy schedules.
"When you reach these kinds of people, it's very difficult to keep them away from their work for 10 weeks," she said.
"Our last fellow was Richard Leakey, and his agent wanted him to stay for only a day. We haggled quite a bit just to get him for three days."
Recent years have seen some fellows stay at the College for as much as a term, however.
In 2000, Robin D. G. Kelley, a prize-winning author and Professor of History and Africana Studies at New York University, was in residence for the entire Summer term.
Richard Schechner, founder of the field of Performance Studies, stayed for a term in 1999, according to Gerstner. In 1998, three Fellows -- August Wilson, Johnnetta Cole and Li Xueqin -- each remained on campus for a month or more.
Gerstner said that although she would prefer to have fellows come for a full term, the decision is often forced upon her.
"We do try to get them for much longer periods of time, but sometimes it's a matter of getting them for three days or not at all."
All Montgomery fellows reside in the Montgomery House, located on Rope Ferry Road, during their stay, and, according to Gerstner, almost invariably enjoy their time at the College.
"It's a unique program, and [the fellows] comment and see how efficient and productive it is," she said.
Gerstner also talked of the recent implementation of themed series, which attempt bring noted figures from a given field or fields to campus separately over the course of a term.
She mentioned the recent "Making Movies, Making Music" series, which saw the arrival of acclaimed movie producers, musicians, and performers, among them Yo-Yo Ma, Ang Lee and Sheryl Crow.
"We also had 'Power of the Presidency' two years ago, where we brought together historians and biographers," Gerstner said of a past series, which featured historians Michael Beschloss and Doris Kearns Goodwin among others.
In evaluating these new approaches to structuring the program, Gerstner stressed that the goals of the Endowment permit a flexible approach to the recruiting of fellows.
"There's no set procedure for how to get these people ... if there are some unique ways of bringing people in, we want to explore that," she said.
Still, little can be done to facilitate the difficult task of finding prospective fellows who agree to devote an entire term to working at the College.
Gerstner said invitations had already been sent out to potential fellows for the Spring and Summer terms, though there have been no term-long acceptances.
Nonetheless, Gerstner remained optimistic that some would take advantage of the opportunity to spend a term at the College. "I'm really hoping to be able to announce another one for the summer," she said.
Fellows are nominated by a 10-person committee, which includes Dartmouth professors, Montgomery family members, former College Trustee Robert Danziger and former College President James Freedman.
