Less than a week after Harvard University named Drew Gilpin Faust as its first female president, College President James Wright applauded the appointment but downplayed its relevance to Dartmouth. At the same time, he reiterated the College's commitment to recruiting female faculty and administrators.
Wright said in an interview that while Dartmouth has largely succeeded in attracting, retaining and promoting female faculty members, women are not represented equally in Dartmouth's top leadership positions.
Religion department chair and women and gender studies professor Susan Ackerman, who graduated from Dartmouth in 1980, said that because Dartmouth was the last Ivy League college to become coeducational in 1972, most of people on the Board of Trustees are men. A male-dominated Board of Trustees, she said, may contribute to a male-dominated Dartmouth.
Wright, however, said that Dartmouth's status as the last Ivy League school to become coeducational was not the primary cause of the discrepancy between the number of men and women in head administrative positions.
"I'm not sure 35 years later that anyone should use that as an excuse or a reason or a rationale for problems that we have today," Wright said. "We worked very hard to address issues of gender equity and I think Dartmouth has played a leadership role in recommending women to the faculty within the Ivy League."
Dartmouth's rural location, rather than its gender dynamic, poses one of the primary obstacles in drawing female administrators to Dartmouth, Wright said. Work opportunities are more limited in the Hanover area than around urban colleges, and because candidates' spouses may not be able to find work nearby, job candidates, especially ones being wooed by multiple universities, may find it easier to accept a position elsewhere.
Harvard's decision, Wright said, will not change Dartmouth's procedures for selecting and recruiting faculty and administrators.
"We salute Harvard on this appointment ... but Dartmouth isn't going to look to Harvard for leadership in this," Wright said. "We have our own history, we have our own commitment and we have our own sense of purpose here."
This sense of purpose includes a desire to increase the number of women holding College leadership positions, he said.
"Nothing would give me more personal satisfaction than knowing that Dartmouth is ready, or more than ready, to appoint a woman [president]," he said.
Stuart Lord, interim vice president of institutional diversity, said that any lack of gender balance within the administration is less a product of Dartmouth's gender environment as it is reflective of an overall national trend, a trend that institutions are aware of and working to correct.
"The problem existed before [Faust] became president. The problem exists two days after she became president," Lord said in an interview Tuesday. "Harvard is not going to be the answer."
Only 23 percent of college presidents were women as of this time last year, according to a 2006 Chronicle of Higher Education survey.
Ackerman, however, said that Harvard's choice of a female president could contribute to a more equal gender dynamic in higher education because other institutions look to Harvard for cues.
"It seems from a purely outsider's perspective that one of the things they did is go beyond the usual suspects and attempt to broaden the applicant pool to [include] people you wouldn't have hired 20 years ago."
Faust is creating buzz because of her gender, but her background as a non-scientist at a major research university has also generated interest. Like Wright, Faust is a historian.
Wright said that a university president does not have to understand the research being conducted at his school at an expert level to fulfill his responsibilities.
"The job of president is not themselves to make these [scientific] contributions, [but] to provide a climate and an environment where the best people can accomplish their own dreams and ambitions," Wright said.
Wright also said that a liberal arts background, particularly that of a historian, aids a president.
"I hope that being a historian enables me to do my job even better," he said. "Historians live in the world, study the world, study cultures marked by change. ... There will be changes that none of us can know, and those people that will do the best will be those who are grounded in the liberal arts."
