The Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center will require criminal background checks and drug tests for potential new employees beginning Sept. 1, the Valley News reported Thursday. DHMC adopted these regulations to match the policies of other hospitals nationwide, John Elliot, DHMC's director of employment and recruitment, told the Valley News. According to Elliot, the drug testing will be performed in-house, while the criminal background checks, which will go back seven to 10 years, will be performed by an outside company. DHMC officials will decide whether to offer positions to candidates who have criminal convictions on a case-by-case basis, depending on the nature of the offense.
More colleges are allowing professors to hold part-time positions, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on Thursday. Many professors who choose to work fewer hours do so in order to fulfill family responsibilities, according to the article. A study by the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor stated that 15 percent of the 189 institutions surveyed officially permitted faculty members to work part-time, while an additional 10 percent said they expected to implement part-time policies within the next few years. Compared to private industry, however, higher education offers fewer part-time options, according to studies conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Evelynn Ellis will become Dartmouth's director of equal opportunity and affirmative action on Sept. 1, the College announced on July 15. Ellis is currently serving as the senior director of the office of graduate educational equity programs at Pennsylvania State University, where she has worked in the field of diversity for the past 23 years. "Evelynn's professional experience has prepared her well for this position," Holly Sateia, vice president for Institutional Diversity and Equity, said. "In speaking to her references, they all mentioned her integrity, her sense of fairness and her record of relationship-building at Penn. She is described as an effective communicator and that is essential in this role." Ellis cited Dartmouth's history of taking proactive measures to encourage minority and disadvantaged students to attend the College, such as recent financial aid changes, as motivating her decision to come to Hanover. "I want to be able to bring my 22 years of experience here and not try to fit Dartmouth into what I know, but to try to use what I have to try to move our diversity plan forward," Ellis said.
