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The Dartmouth
July 11, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

DMS dean outlines plan to reduce budget

Dartmouth Medical School officials have outlined a plan to implement the $25 million budget cut announced in February, DMS Dean William Green told The Dartmouth. The proposal, which has not yet been finalized, creates a student services fee and increases the size of the student body, but does not affect financial aid or reduce the number of faculty positions, Green said. Members of the DMS student government said they do not believe the changes will compromise the overall quality of the medical school's academic environment.

DMS officials were already in the process of revising the school's overall strategic plan when the $25 million budget cut was announced, Green said, and are currently incorporating the budget reductions into the ongoing restructuring process.

Green said he hopes to finalize the strategic plan, including the budget, and present the proposal to the Board of Trustees for approval in June. The Board indicated its support for the current version of the plan at its April meeting.

All of the budget changes are being considered on a case-by-case basis, Green said.

"It's neither an across-the-board cut, nor is it something where any units were taken off or put on the table right at the get-go," Green said.

The proposed cuts were made only after consultation with all DMS department chairs, Green said.

"We provided the different units with financial goals or targets and they modified our plans in a back-and-forth process," Green said. "The department chairs were in charge of making final recommendations."

DMS plans to supplement revenue by increasing its incoming class size from 78 to a target of 83 for the upcoming academic year, Green said, explaining that the medical school will also work to increase funding from federal grants.

"We're still in the process of coming up with our overall plan because there's a lot of federal stimulus money that's being directed toward grant opportunities, but it's hard to quantify at this point what we'll be able to capture from that," he said.

As DMS announced in February, some staff members will be laid off as a result of the budget cuts. Green said he still does not know exactly how many workers will be let go, but indicated that some positions typically held by multiple staff members will be combined.

DMS does not plan to reduce the size of its faculty, he added, but will now require individual departments to fund all new professors' salaries from the department's budget, which includes grant funding, for the first three years they are at the College.

"We're looking for departments to find innovative ways to fund all new faculty positions, other than using DMS central funds," he said. "It's definitely a change from prior policy."

To help DMS avoid further cuts, Green said, the medical school will begin charging a new student service fee, as announced after the April 4 Board meeting.

This fee, in conjunction with the tuition increases announced in February, will result in an 8.9 percent increase in total cost for students.

The new fee will be used to fund student advocacy programs, wellness activities and financial counseling, among other projects, Green said.

"There's this sort of paradoxical situation in which you have all these individuals dedicating their lives to helping others, yet they're so busy that they sometimes forget to take care of themselves," he said. "Making sure they don't forget to do this is particularly important, given the fact that it affects how well they can help others."

While the fee is not popular with students, student government representatives understand that the current financial situation makes it necessary, according to Tom Frandsen, a second-year medical student and member of the DMS student government.

DMS student government President Ben Snyder, who has completed his third year of medical school, added that his organization was active throughout the budget reduction process. Representatives conducted a student survey to identify programs viewed as essential to the DMS experience and shared the results with administrators, he said.

"Members of the administration were all present at last month's student government meeting," he said. "We were thankful that they were keeping us informed, and that they sought a general consensus from student government representatives on whether the developments were fair or not."

Frandsen said he is confident that the school will continue to provide a "great education."

"The budget cuts could be a lot worse," he said. "To be honest, I think it is a good thing to be making the medical school really analyze how to run more efficiently to limit costs."

Students are particularly concerned that the budget cuts will affect extracurricular programs, Snyder said.

"In general, I would say that the DMS students are not worried about the budget cuts affecting the quality of education, but rather maintaining the current breadth of student-centered programs," he said.

DMS faculty members told The Dartmouth that they were included in the budget restructuring process and were able to offer suggestions about how DMS could save money in the future.

Physiology professor William North said he suggested that graduate school faculty teach undergraduate classes at the College to increase efficiency.

DMS' endowment stood at $453 million as of June 2008, which does not account for the College's overall 18-percent endowment decline at the end of 2008. Green said he did not know the current value of DMS' endowment, but stressed that DMS remains in a "favorable" position with respect to financial aid.

"In previous years, we could satisfy the needs for financial aid without spending all the money allotted from the endowment, so we created a reserve fund," he said. "Fortunately, this has grown, so we'll be able to start drawing from the reserve fund in order to keep financial aid at the robust level it needs to be."

Financial assistance will also be extended to qualifying students to help cover the additional student fees, Green said.

"We want to make sure that DMS is able to continue to provide high-quality education and services for all its students, no matter their financial situation," he said.