There is a growing disparity between the endowments of a small group of America's wealthiest universities and all other institutions of higher education, according to The New York Times. Fewer than 400 of the country's 4,500 institutions of higher education had $100 million endowments at the end of the last fiscal year. Harvard, the wealthiest American university with an endowment of $34.9 billion, saw its endowment grow by $5.7 billion in 2007. Dartmouth's endowment reached $3.76 billion at the end of the 2006-07 fiscal year, according to the Dartmouth College Office of Public Affairs.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center psychiatrist Giuseppe "Bepi" Raviola is one of 10 recipients nationwide of the 2008 Laughlin Fellowship. Given annually by the American College of Psychiatrists, the fellowship honors those who are expected to make significant future contributions to the field of psychiatry. His achievements include notable volunteer work among impoverished children and their families, as well as research done in Nairobi, Kenya. Raviola, who graduated from Harvard Medical School in 2002, is a resident in child and adolescent psychiatry at DHMC.
Sandra Spiegel, Director of Graduate Recruiting and Diversity, spoke to a small panel of administrators and graduate students about her role in creating a more diverse graduate student community at Dartmouth on Monday afternoon in Collis 101. Spiegel discussed her role as a diversity recruiter and the importance of increasing the percentage of underrepresented students in the graduate student body. "As much as possible, your student population should mirror the population of the United States," Spiegel said. During her tenure, the percentage of underrepresented graduate students has increased from 3.8 percent in 2004 to 9 percent in 2007. The presentation, titled "The Underrepresented Brightest and Best," was part of the monthly Diversity Forum program and was sponsored by the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity.
