Dartmouth Medical School faculty gave feedback about the qualities they would like to see in Dartmouth's next president at an open forum held by Trustee Al Mulley '70, chair of the presidential search committee, and DMS Dean Bill Green on Friday at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Mulley and Dartmouth Board of Trustees Chairman Ed Haldeman '70 have held similar forums for students, alumni and faculty this spring and decided to hold a forum for clinicians who might not have been able to leave DHMC to attend the faculty meeting on May 9, Mulley said.
The Board will use the input to construct a "leadership statement" and to make the search process more transparent, Haldeman said in a previous interview with The Dartmouth.
Haldeman was not present for Friday's event.
The forum, attended by approximately 10 faculty members, largely focused on bridging the gap between graduate research at Dartmouth and the College's emphasis on undergraduate education.
Many of Dartmouth's past presidents and provosts have not understood the complexities of running a medical school, David Nierenberg, a DMS professor, said, adding that that has led to "inadequacies" in understanding the job of the DMS dean and in helping to solve problems facing DMS.
The Board appreciates the need for the College administration to understand these intricacies, Mulley said. He added that the planned expansion of the Board, which would end the College's tradition of parity between the number of board-selected and alumni-elected trustees, would allow the Board to add trustees who could better represent the interests of Dartmouth's graduate schools.
"We need to be able to develop a Board that can meet these needs," Mulley, who is the chief of the general medicine division at Massachusetts General Hospital, said.
Dartmouth's next president must also understand that research does not divert resources away from undergraduate education, but rather enhances the undergraduate experience at Dartmouth, Nierenberg added.
"We see the dichotomy between research and teaching as a false dichotomy at Dartmouth," Mulley said in response, reiterating a sentiment that he and Haldeman expressed at last week's forum for faculty. The Board made a statement about the importance of research in September, Mulley said, but it was somewhat overshadowed by the announced changes to the College's governance structure.
One faculty member commented on the difficulty of retaining faculty for Dartmouth's graduate schools, and another questioned the Board's vision for Dartmouth's future.
"I have always been very confused about what the Board of Trustees wants Dartmouth to be in 20 years," DMS professor David Malenka said. "Because when you look at what the alumni are saying, there is disagreement."
Defining this vision will be the goal of the leadership statement, Mulley said.
"It is not a job description, but it aims to answer what is the vision of Dartmouth, what are the challenges and what are the opportunities for the next president," Mulley said. "It is all about trying to understand the burden and the blessing of Dartmouth and its relatively unique niche. There are few institutions with the small class size and intimacy between faculty and students that also have the prestigious graduate schools that Dartmouth has."
Dartmouth's dual focus on research and undergraduate education can be a "burden," Mulley added, because the College's fear of diverting resources away from undergraduate programs can make it difficult to retain and recruit faculty for the graduate programs.
In addition to the forums that have already been held, the graduate schools are holding informal sessions of approximately 10 faculty members to solicit input regarding the presidential search.
The leadership statement should be finished in July, Mulley said, after it has been reviewed by the search committee, whose membership should be announced in June. The Board will also announce the name of the consultant firm that will advise the search committee in the next few weeks. Searches usually take six to nine months, and the Board believes it is on track to announce the new president next spring and aims to do so by June 2009.
