Last week's Verbum Ultimum (Feb. 24) accurately described the contrast between Larry Summers' role as intellectual provocateur at Harvard and James Wright's bland political posturing at Dartmouth. However, this distinction stops short of a more important point: the president of an educational institution is the central engine of its evolution.
I used to think that the Wright Administration had a plan to turn Dartmouth into a research university, but after watching Professors Michael Gazzaniga and Jon Appleton leave the College last year, I have reconsidered. In losing Gazzaniga, Dartmouth lost a potential Nobel Prize winner to the University of California Santa Barbara, where Gazzaniga is setting up a new neurosciences program that will offer stiff competition to Dartmouth in the coming years. Professor Jon Appleton, who is leaving for Stanford, is a legendary pioneer in the development of electronic music. He personally created Dartmouth's graduate program in this cutting-edge field.
If Jim Wright's strategy really is to turn the College into Dartmouth U., how could he sit back passively and let these renowned researchers depart? The only logical explanation for his lax behavior lies in the basic competence of our weak President and his administration.
Gazzaniga, Appleton and many of the other high-achieving scholars who have abandoned the College have special qualities: not only do they advance challenging ideas, they also have the courage and energy to put them into effect. Contrast this group of high achievers with Jim Wright himself and the crowd around him.
Of course, nobody can say that Wright and his senior administrators are not an amiable bunch. They listen carefully, nod soberly, and ponder anyone's argument. And they are always quick on the draw with inspiring generalities (Wright's favorite words seem to be "vision," "ambition," "bold," and "audacious"). But do these people actually effect creative change?
Think back for a moment: in its seven dull years, has the Wright Administration done anything that you would consider unique or innovative? To be fair, the last three years have seen some attempts at change. Faced with an open revolt by the alumni in electing three petition trustees, Wright has made positive steps on the issues of free speech, alcohol policy and new facilities. But these measures are either overdue corrections to the malaise of the previous decade or the undoing of glaring past mistakes; they represent only relative progress in social matters, not progress in Dartmouth's core academic mission.
When world-class faculty walk out the door, I am forced to conclude that the Wright Administration's only real strategy is timid caution. Don't rock the boat. Avoid controversy. Don't pick winners because that might mean identifying losers.
Limited by this attitude, the Wright Administration trudges prudently along, unable to set real priorities and without any definite plan for the future. Internally, he avoids hard decisions: for example, it is almost impossible for incompetent Dartmouth administrators to be fired. Instead, as we have seen all too often and at great cost, extra bureaucrats or even extra deans are hired to shore up lackluster people already in place.
In such an environment, most faculty members have simply decided to teach and do research, and avoid involvement in the larger intellectual life of the College. The overwhelming majority of professors stopped attending faculty meetings years ago. After all, nothing unscripted ever happens in them, not when they are run by an administration that prizes conformity and personal loyalty above all else. In the future, look for other top-notch professors to leave the College. They will be among Dartmouth's best, and sadly, most of them would like to stay here. But they will move to the fresh air of schools where, beyond professionally polished rhetoric about excellence, there exists a sincere commitment to supporting important and original work.
It is not blasphemy to say that today at Dartmouth we have a president who is no more than ploddingly mediocre and who has surrounded himself with like-tempered souls.
The Dartmouth's editorial staffers should not have pulled their punches. They should have come out and forthrightly expressed what has now become common wisdom among alums and most informed members of the College community: Jim Wright must leave the Dartmouth Presidency before any more long-term damage is done to the College.
The Trustees must then put into place a confident, forceful President and a lean administration made up of men and women who are able to keep good faculty in Hanover and advance an academic program that will make us all proud.
Until that day, the flight of top-quality scholars will continue and Dartmouth College will drift ever further away from achieving its unique promise.
