Even as Dartmouth has announced increasingly detailed plans to scale back its financial expenditures in a host of areas, College President James Wright has continually affirmed that the College's academic integrity and commitment to fostering a diversity of views and experiences -- core Dartmouth values he has emphasized over the course of his presidency -- will remain unchanged.
And looking out at the Green from his office in Parkhurst Hall, with its polished wood conference table and studded green leather chairs, there is a sense that the long gaze of Dartmouth's President goes beyond the small details of the present to a more overarching vision for Dartmouth's future, and that the current budget woes, though serious, are just blips on the radar screen.
"I think the economic difficulties that we're facing now are difficulties that are being faced by everyone in higher education," Wright said. "There's nothing unique about what's happening at Dartmouth . . . I think that we have to do is continually remind ourselves about those things that are most important here."
Providing an abundance of opportunities to a diverse range of people and having to make budget cuts are not mutually exclusive actions, but, rather, parallel concepts in completely separate realms, Wright said.
Yet he emphasized that the quality of education Dartmouth insists on providing requires a intensive investment in its students and faculty.
"The sort of learning that takes place at Dartmouth is expensive," he said, noting that the College's emphasis on need-blind admissions, small classes and close student-faculty relationships requires substantial financial aid spending as well as faculty salaries commensurate with the kind of teaching Dartmouth expects.
In keeping with this idea, the recently announced Fiscal Year 2004 budget includes a raise in faculty compensation and fringe benefits among an array of spending reductions in other areas.
Despite a firm conviction that certain aspects of the Dartmouth education remain sacrosanct and safe from budget cuts, Wright said that the term's swim team imbroglio has indicated the importance of being flexible and resourceful about decisions with far-reaching consequences.
"We are willing to admit that maybe we should have done it differently," he said. "We need to be careful about surprising people. We need to have more of an open process," Wright added, noting, that open, two-way discourse -- not angry demonstrations -- is the way to come to an effective compromise.
"There is always a temptation in these situations to dig in your heels and be stubborn," he said, but praised the swim team's creative response to the cuts.
Wright noted that despite the financial constraints necessitated by a dip in the economy, Dartmouth has succeeded admirably in avoiding layoffs, which seemed imminent as recently as last term, and in minimizing the impact of library budget cuts.
Dartmouth is uniquely lucky to be able to preserve the quality of its research through grants, as well as the diversity and quality of its student body through an intensive, personalized admissions process, he said.
His strong public condemnation last week of the Bush administration's opposition to affirmative action-based admissions policies at the University of Michigan was based, he said, on the dual convictions that diversity is something universities should strive for unconditionally -- and independent of interference from the government.
"This is not a political stance. It really is an affirmation of something that is very important to this college and the nature of this college," Wright said. "I am disappointed that the Bush administration does not support University of Michigan . . . we all have to be terribly nervous if access to certain elements of our population is reduced."
The point-based admissions system used by Michigan -- which awards a bonus to minority applicants -- has been widely criticized for its similarity to the racial quota systems struck down in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling.
Dartmouth is lucky not to have to resort to such a system, Wright said. Because of a smaller applicant pool and a well-endowed admissions office, Dartmouth can evaluate each applicant individually, with race being only one of many factors considered.
But with privilege comes an obligation to see that universities' right to autonomy in determining access to higher education is protected, Wright said. Dartmouth plans to file an amicus brief through the American Council of Higher education and possibly individually to make sure its views are heard.
"I think that we all have to be very nervous about the government imposing upon us regulations that constrain our ability to admit the student body that we want to," Wright said. "I think that a place as privileged as we are and as fortunate as we are has to make sure that these opportunities are as widely available" as possible.
