Native American Studies professor Bruce Duthu '80 will be the 2009 Class Day Faculty Speaker, according to an e-mail sent to members of the Class of 2009 from the Senior Executive Committee. Duthu is an enrolled member of the United Houma Nation of Louisiana, according to his biography on the Dartmouth web site, and has written several books on subjects pertaining to Native American affairs. Duthu also contributed to "Felix S. Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law," the leading treatise in the field. Duthu earned his law degree from Loyola University School of Law. Before joining the Dartmouth faculty, Duthu taught at Vermont Law School and served as law school's vice dean for academic affairs. Duthu was Class Orator for the Class of 1980, according to the e-mail.
President-elect Jim Yong Kim discussed his decision to accept the offer to become Dartmouth's president in an interview published in the journal Science on April 24. "I've taken on some major problems in the last 25 years, drug-resistant tuberculosis and HIV, and those were fantastic experiences, but I felt very, very strongly that we needed to train the next generation of young people who would do this work," Kim said in the article. Kim also commented on the reactions to his status as the first Asian to lead an Ivy League school. "The Korean press has really responded to this with great energy," he said. Kim explained that by training students to address issues of social justice and health care, his work with global health will continue, even though that will not be his main focus. "I'm not going to Dartmouth to do global health," Kim said in the interview. "I'm going to Dartmouth to be president."
