In her landmark stem cell study published online last month in Nature, Nancy Speck reports on research she performed at Dartmouth Medical School with fellow Dartmouth researchers. While Speck ensured that the article mentions her connection to the College, it also lists the institution with which she is currently affiliated -- the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Speck, who started at Penn in September, is one of three high-profile science faculty members who have left the College recently for larger institutions in the last several years, often to pursue expanded research opportunities.
The College's isolated location, small size and focus on undergraduate instruction prompt some faculty to leave, Speck said.
Despite the loss of some researchers, the College has an "excellent" faculty retention rate and continues to attract faculty from other universities, Dean of the Faculty Carol Folt said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Folt emphasized that Dartmouth is working to address the concerns of faculty who have left, noting, however, that some of their criticisms are due to the inherent structure of the College. For example, many researchers leave for institutions with larger graduate programs, Folt said.
"When people leave, that means they wanted something different," she said.
Speck said she decided to transfer to Penn for personal reasons -- explaining that she wanted to live in a city and be closer to her family -- and also because Dartmouth did not have as many specialists in her field. At Penn, there are 30 people doing similar research, Speck said.
"Dartmouth is wonderful, but it's small," she said. "For some people, it may be more important to be surrounded by people doing similar research."
Both Speck and Victor Ambros, who helped discover microRNA at Dartmouth and is now at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, said that some members of the Dartmouth community think research detracts from undergraduate education.
"The College felt that Dartmouth should be more like Williams [College] and never really embraced the research," Speck said.
Chemistry professor Barney Grubbs recently left Dartmouth for the State University of New York-Stony Brook, chemistry department chair David Glueck said. Grubbs could not be reached for comment, and Glueck said he did not know why Grubbs departed.
Faculty and administrators believe that conducting research makes professors better teachers, Ambros said in an e-mail, but students and alumni often maintain the opposite view. Folt said the College understands the importance of research and seeks faculty who can excel in both research and teaching.
"You can't get tenure here if you're not doing major research, but you also have to be a good teacher," she said.
Dartmouth is working to improve and increase laboratory space to allow for more advanced research. Construction is underway on the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center, and DMS has plans for a new research building, according to Folt.
During his time at the College, Ambros said facilities often hindered research because professors had to cope with power outages and cooling system failures in places like Gilman and Remsen Halls.
"If we weren't doing the Class of 1978 Life Sciences science building, it would be devastating to our science faculty," Folt said, adding that Dartmouth would lose researchers, and would not be able to recruit new ones.
Professors also leave Dartmouth because their spouses cannot find work in the area, Glueck said.
Dartmouth's size and isolation can also make it hard to implement new research strategies, Speck said. Instead of having to travel or bring someone to Hanover to learn a new laboratory technique, Speck can now just walk across the hall, she said.
Bigger institutions with larger numbers of researchers often receive more funding because there are more people applying for external grants, Ambros said.
The College encourages interdisciplinary work to compensate for fewer researchers, Folt said, adding that she sometimes wishes the College had more faculty in her specific area, aquatic pollution. Professors often remain at Dartmouth because they can collaborate with faculty from all of Dartmouth's schools, including the undergraduate college, DMS, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and the Thayer School of Engineering, she said.
"What we can do as an institution is make it really easy for them to work together," Folt said. "The best institutions are the ones who make siloed departments less and less important."
Speck, however, said a disconnect exists among DHMC, DMS and the College. Each has a different mission -- patient care, research and teaching, respectively, according to Speck.
"The medical school was the poor sister of the triumvirate," she said. "I felt like we were often fighting for our research agenda."
According to DMS Dean William Green, the medical school and DHMC do share a common agenda as an academic medical center.
"It doesn't mean that it's perfect, but we have the same overall vision of what we want to be," Green said.
Green initially helped recruit Speck to Dartmouth as a postdoctoral fellow, he said.
"When you lose somebody and it's a key person, it really hurts," Green said. "At the same time, I have to be a little pleased. DMS is a place where people can reach their full potential."
Having Dartmouth professors recruited by other institutions is a sign of the College's strength because it shows that Dartmouth has strong researchers, Green said. Professors who do leave often go on to high-tier institutions, including Stanford University and Columbia University, according to Folt.
"When you get to a certain tier of researchers, there's competition," Jill Mortali, director of the Office of Sponsored Programs, said. "I've heard it compared to Major League Baseball."
Dartmouth has also attracted faculty from other institutions including Princeton University and Brown University. Over the past 10 years, the College has recruited more than 30 new science faculty, which includes 11 for new positions, Folt said.
"Dartmouth has an excellent [research] reputation," Folt said. "We're not known for size, but we're known for quality in certain programs."
