When President Emeritus James Freedman came to Dartmouth in 1987, he entered an institution that was still male-dominated, largely conservative and mired at the bottom of Ivy League academics. He instituted policies promoting diversity and intellectual openness that helped transform the College's public image. While this caused some initial controversy among the student body, it drew enormous praise and popular support from the faculty and allowed Freedman to exit a very different institution when he resigned in 1998.
"He was so committed to issues of diversity and inclusion," Natalie Herring '95, second vice-president of the Black Alumni of Dartmouth Association and alumna vice-president of her class, said. "I felt like President Freedman was really a president for all students, being a black student on campus. There's definitely a moment of pride to know you are changing the face of your campus."
Faculty noticed the ethnic and gender make-up of their classes changing as well. According to Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg, in 1987 the matriculating freshman class was 38 percent female and had 19 percent minority students. Ten years later, and one year before Freedman's resignation, the numbers had increased to 49 percent females and 25 percent minority students in the matriculating freshman class.
"President Freedman had a clear vision for the intellectual quality and diversity of the student body at Dartmouth which would positively contribute to the learning environment and educational experience for all students and faculty," Furstenberg said.
Anthropology Department Chair Deborah Nichols, who began teaching at the College in 1985, remembers there being fewer Asian-American students and fewer women than there are today.
"The decision of the Board of Trustees to have parity between men and women was an important change, and one that you all kind of take for granted today," Nichols said. "It was part of the final moving away from it having once been an all-male college."
Herring, as a senior interviewer for the admissions office, also saw the student body evolve in terms of diversity.
"During my time here, I thought Dartmouth was so progressive," Herring said. "I think to this day people are shocked that I went to Dartmouth. And they are also shocked when I say that I absolutely loved it. They think [of] Dartmouth [as a] conservative bastion."
The Freedman administration took great strides in intellectual diversity as well as ethnic diversity. In a now famous quote from his inaugural address Freedman spoke of strengthening the College's attraction to students whose greatest pleasure come from lonely acts such as translating Catullus rather than from the camaraderie of classmates.
His statement was blasted by The Dartmouth Review and many members of the student body were initially uncertain of the new president's policies.
"Freedman was seen as the wimpy new Dartmouth," Tig Tillinghast '93, former editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth, said. "Not just the Dartmouth Review crowd but also by people who were concerned about Dartmouth hewing its tradition of being a really teaching college, classical liberal arts and moving toward [becoming] a university, political[ly] correct, studying everything and nothing. That's the caricature of the two sides."
Though Freedman faced many obstacles during the early years of his tenure, student perception did begin to change.
"By the time I was a senior, I think people generally liked him more," Tillinghast said. "He was an extremely effective administrator."
Faculty members said his policies led to a significant evolution of the College's intellectual atmosphere.
Religion professor Susan Ackerman '80 noted that the Catullus quote is often ridiculed because people believed that "Freedman wanted to take one kind of student and replace it with another," she said. "I don't think that's true at all. He wanted to break down homogeneity at Dartmouth, where everyone fit into a certain social mold."
He realized that not everyone "would be happy with a work hard, play hard stereotype that is still used to characterize Dartmouth," Ackerman said.
Ackerman, as an alumna, understands from first-hand experience what it feels like not to fit into the social mold. She referred to herself as a nerd who loves books and said that "in the early 1970s and 80s, Dartmouth was a hard place for a person like me in terms of feeling welcome among the student body."
Ackerman believes Freedman helped transform student attitudes toward intellectualism.
"A student who says on Friday night I'm going to the library won't be ridiculed today like they would have been 30 years ago," she said. "I remember one of my classmates said the first thing he did at Dartmouth was go to the library and check out a book he'd always wanted to read and read it. People looked at him like he was really weird. I don't think that would be the case today."
Nichols agreed. She had a similar experience in 1985, her first year teaching at the College, when one of her students felt the need to hide from his friends that he was participating in an independent reading project.
"He was hiding his stuff over in the library so that nobody would see him," Nichols said. "It reflected a certain attitude that you didn't want to be studying too much."
Like Ackerman, Nichols also thinks Freedman helped transform the College's intellectual atmosphere.
"There has been a change," she said. "A student can be more openly intellectual."
