The Dean of the College search committee, which began meeting this summer, is in its initial stages of generating ideas for the process of finding candidates. The group will hold open discussions with the campus and will begin advertising for the position over the next few weeks.
The group, whose membership was decided in July, consists of Provost Barry Scherr, several faculty members representing different departments and offices and three undergraduate students, Tim Andreadis '07, LaVon Morgan '07 and Ian Tapu '08.
Members of the group expressed that they hope that former Dean of the College James Larimore's successor will be someone whose own vision matches a shared vision that the committee will work together to create.
"We've really gotten out, as part of our discussion, a very long list of things we're interested in," Scherr said. "Over the next few weeks one of the things we will be doing is prioritizing, seeing if there are any key issues. We don't want to come into it with too many priority assumptions."
Sandra Spiegel, Director of Graduate Studies Recruiting and Diversity and a member of the committee, characterized an ideal dean as "a good communicator with experience working with students, faculty and administrators."
"Dartmouth always offers wonderful opportunities for someone to bring their own vision. We have great students and great faculty," Psychological and Brain sciences professor Catherine Cramer said. "We're looking for someone who has the vision to see what you could do with that and for ways of integrating a lot of the kinds of programming that are already available -- someone who can take that and move us to the next level."
This fall, the committee plans to hold a series of open meetings on campus to discuss the qualities students and faculty members wish to see in the next Dean of the College.
After releasing advertisements for the position over the next few weeks, the committee will read resumes of prospective candidates. The committee will interview a smaller group of candidates off-campus in Boston or New York, and ultimately select between three and five individuals who will come to Dartmouth for a final round of interviews Winter term.
From this slate of candidates, Wright will make the final decision on who will be Dean of the College. Ideally, the new Dean will begin at Dartmouth during the 2007 Summer term.
Scherr added that the final decisions will come down to weighing the qualities each candidate possesses with the level of their experience.
"I would think that we would get a lot of interesting candidates, as Dartmouth is well regarded as an institution," Scherr said.
Cramer acknowledged the difficulty of the search process.
"It's a very complex job," she said. "I've been struck at the few meetings we've had. I've been struck by how much responsibility the dean has. Even coming up with a comprehensive job description is difficult."
Throughout the process, it is unlikely that the group will disclose its internal workings and the nature of its debates.
"A lot of our work is confidential and the process would be undermined if we discussed all aspects of our work," Spiegel said.
Former Dean of the College James Larimore resigned in May after accepting a position as Dean of Students at Swarthmore College, citing both professional and personal reasons for his departure.
He believed that he could have a greater impact on a smaller school where students were not constantly coming and going from off-terms and felt that Swarthmore's academic calendar -- with two semesters per year and summers off -- would allow him to spend more time with his family.
