William Helman '80 and Denise Dupre '80, who graduated from Dartmouth as members of the same class, will return together as newly appointed charter trustees. The two friends said that they are excited to work with College President-elect Jim Yong Kim and will draw from their respective experience in business and academia to serve the College.
Helman, who was appointed earlier this month with Dupre, said he has known Kim for years and is familiar with Kim's work. While Kim was teaching at Harvard University, Helman said he joked that Kim was the only non-graduate student teaching Harvard undergraduates, he said.
Helman said that his role as a trustee will enable him to help Kim carry out a vision and agenda for improving the College.
"Dartmouth is terrific today but that doesn't mean it can be better place," he said.
Helman is currently a managing partner at Greylock, a venture capitalist firm where he has worked for the past 25 years, and said he hopes to apply his experience in business to his work on the Board. He was also the chair of the President's Leadership Council at Dartmouth.
"I've spent my life in the business of building companies," he said. "I've been on boards of small startups and on boards of companies that are large and robust. It's all given me experience in problem solving and taking on the challenges that arise."
Helman majored in history and minored in economics as a student at the College. He said he was a member of Phi Delta Alpha fraternity and "guesses" that he was president of the senior class.
"I say I guess' because one of the platforms on which I ran was that helping the class should be a voluntary thing," he said. "I didn't like some of the institutions that were in place. I didn't want this hierarchical organization. I believed that anyone who wants to be involved can be involved."
The most important part of his Dartmouth experience was the interaction he had with faculty members, according to Helman. He said he took an eclectic mix of classes because he chose courses with professors he particularly wanted to study with.
"Discussing Paradise Lost" at eight in the morning may not seem very exciting but I did not miss a class," he said. "That was how good the professor was and those are the kinds of things that make Dartmouth so special. This was not a graduate student teaching."
Helman also enjoyed building intimate friendships with other students including Dupre, his fellow trustee. Helman said that they remained close friends as both live in the Boston area and coincidentally, her husband was in his class at Harvard Business School.
Although Dupre has only corresponded with Kim, she said she is also looking forward to working with the new president given his ability to inspire so many.
"He just sets the bar so high and he has achieved so many highs in his career," she said. "I think he brings so much enthusiasm that you want to be at the far goalpost with him."
Dupre was an economics major at the College when Dartmouth was still in the transition to coeducation and men outnumbered women three to one on campus, she said. Sports played a pivotal role in her experience at the College, according to Dupre, who played tennis and was also a member of the Dartmouth ski team. Dupre said sports gave her camaraderie and taught her to be dedicated and keep a positive attitude.
After graduating from the College, Dupre worked for an advertising agency and later earned a masters degree from Cornell University's School of Hotel Management, where she began her teaching career. She then worked in marketing and consulting for the hotel industry including serving on the Board of Overseers of the Hanover Inn.
"I got back into the classroom as an assistant professor and director of the hotel school at Boston University," she said. "It was a new program so that took a lot of entrepreneurial spirit and a lot of careful thinking."
Dupre is currently teaching a course at Harvard Extension School based on her hotel industry textbook, "Hospitality World."
She also serves as the president of the Board of Regents of Mercersburg Academy, a boarding school in Mercersburg, Penn., and is on the board of the Charles River School in Dover, Mass. and Fessenden School in West Newton, Mass.
Dupre said she hopes to use her experience in academia to listen and learn more about Dartmouth students.
"I find such passion and activity in the classroom," she said. "I think students, especially those at Dartmouth, are all incredibly vibrant and invigorating. This is an honor, privilege, and a real chance to give back to Dartmouth. I just hope that I can even begin to repay all that Dartmouth has given to me."
Dupre has also served on the Alumni Council and the President's Leadership Council.
She has been a Reunion Committee Chair and served as president of her class from 1985-1990.
Helman and Dupre are replacing Russell Carson '65 and Karen Francis '84 as trustees.
