Jim Yong Kim delivered his first message to the Dartmouth community Monday afternoon before an audience that was largely unfamiliar with his academic work and personal history. Given that Kim's predecessor, current President James Wright, will leave in July after nearly four decades at the College, the president-elect's speech needed to set the stage for his integration with a tightly knit campus community.
Kim began his speech by praising Wright's accomplishments, particularly noting that the current president and his wife "created a warm and inviting atmosphere for all Dartmouth students, faculty and alums -- and even for newcomers like me."
He highlighted the College's "rich traditions and a vibrant, ever-evolving culture," emphasizing that he and his family "are anxious to learn about and embrace every bit of it."
Throughout the speech, Kim used inclusive references to "our College" and framed his goals for Dartmouth with first-person plural declaratives: "We know we can create these leaders," "We must teach our students to find our passion" and "We're not such a small group at Dartmouth."
Kim also drew parallels between himself and former College President John Sloan Dickey, who worked at the U.S. Department of State prior to his tenure at Dartmouth.
"President Dickey left a lasting mark on Dartmouth," Kim said. "He spent most of his career before becoming president outside of academia, but he believed passionately in the power of education to foster positive change."
To this end, Kim placed many of the references to his career outside Dartmouth in the context of Dickey's legacy, noting the former president's axiom, "The world's troubles are your troubles."
"In my small way, I've tried to make the world's troubles my troubles," he said, citing his work with the World Health Organization's HIV/AIDS department in Peru, Haiti and post-genocidal Rwanda.
Kim's evocation of Dickey may suggest that he, too, hopes to enter the College an outsider and leave with a lasting legacy.
Kim dedicated significant portions of his speech to his personal biography, touching upon his childhood in Muscatine, Iowa, as well as the birth of his second son this past Friday.
These life experiences set the background for Kim's subsequent proposal of goals for the College: Kim's father instilled in him a sense of practicality, he said, while his mother taught him to have high ambitions. These two themes will be the core of his administrative strategy during his tenure, he said.
"Dare great things, keep your feet on the ground -- I hope that will prove to be a good formula for a president of Dartmouth," he said.
Kim's selection as the College's next president takes place as a falling economy slashes the College's endowment. His simultaneously practical and inspirational rhetoric outlined the challenge Dartmouth will face in the near future: maintaining fiscal solvency while striving to develop as a world-class academic institution.
Kim defended his ability to strike this balance, pointing to seemingly impossible goals that he accomplished while working in global health.
"I've found again and again in my career that when you set bold, ambitious goals, plenty of people will tell you that you're crazy or that it just can't be done," he said. "If we teach nothing else at Dartmouth, we must teach our students to find their passion, to aim high ... work hard ... and settle for nothing less than to transform the world."
