The College will not begin the search to find a permanent replacement for Crady before spring or summer of 2010, Provost Barry Scherr told The Dartmouth on Tuesday. In a letter sent to the Dean of the College's Office on Tuesday, Crady did not specifically enumerate the reasons behind his depature, but said the decision to leave the College was a "difficult" one, terming the departure a "family decision."
"I had anticipated working with you for many years to come," Crady said in the letter, noting that the choice was made particularly difficult because he had been "particularly enthusiastic about our new [College President] Jim Yong Kim, and his aspirations for Dartmouth."
Crady was not available for further comment by press time.
Crady's departure comes just two months into the tenure of new College President Jim Yong Kim. In a statement released on Tuesday evening, Kim called Crady a "passionate advocate for students," and said he had "every confidence in Sylvia Spears, and everyone in the Dean of the College area, to continue with this important work."
Kim has been unavailable for further comment this week.
In an interview with The Dartmouth following the announcement of Crady's departure, Spears said she had only been discussing the shift into the Dean of the College's Office with Scherr and other College officials for "the past two or three days" before the official announcement was made.
Spears said that her top priorities asdean will be to "stabilize the [Dean of the College] division as best as possible" and to manage the arrival of new and returning students to the College this Fall.
"I think one of the major priorities for me is to help the staff to give our good wishes to [Crady] and his family... and to keep our eyes on the core functions of the division: to support the experience of Dartmouth students outside the classroom and to enhance their success while they're here," Spears told The Dartmouth.
Spears will also participate in the wide-ranging review and restructuring of the Dean of the College's Office proposed by Scherr in his Tuesday morning e-mail announcing Crady's departure, she said.
Although she said it would be "premature" to discuss specific plans to alter the division, Spears said she expects to collaborate with Scherr on reviewing how the division delivers services to students.
The committee that hired Crady had originally discussed reassessing the structure of the Dean of the College's office because of the large number of organizations that report to the office, Scherr said in an interview with The Dartmouth on Tuesday. The committee decided to go ahead with the search for a replacement, ultimately hiring Crady without making any alterations, which Scherr said they decided against in the search for Crady's replacement.
"What I want to make sure we do this time is really be confident before we start a search that the structure is what we want it to be," Scherr said. "There may not be any changes at all, but I think it's good to do that before you have a search committee struggling with it."
Any work on long-term goals in the Dean of the College's Office will be secondary to "steadying things" as the College begins preparations for Fall term, Spears added.
The announcement of Crady's departure came in the wake of significant restructuring in the First-Year Office and the Upperclass Deans Office, which were merged last week to improve their mutual efficiency, The Dartmouth previously reported.
There are also a number of "major projects and initiatives" under active development by students that Spears will familiarize herself with during the transition, according to an e-mail to Dartmouth students from Student Body President Frances Vernon '10.
"Many of the programs in the Dean of the College division are developed to, hopefully, provide students with a large variety of experiences where they can develop leadership skills," Spears said. "I will continue to be connected to students as they launch initiatives and come up with innovative ideas for the College."
Spears' combined experiences in OPAL and at the University of Rhode Island as both a faculty member and administrator will be helpful as she manages her two-year deanship, she said.
"[These experiences] really give me a broad view of the community needs and some appropriate mechanisms for supporting students," Spears said. "It's my hope that my previous experience and knowledge and education can be brought to bear in positive ways in the acting dean's role."
Her experience in a public institution of higher education will also be beneficial in managing College programs in the context of a more limited College budget, she said. Spears has seen model programs develop without Dartmouth's large resource base, she said, and will bring her knowledge of creative solutions to financial challenges with her to the Dean of the College's Office.
To fill the vacancy in OPAL caused by Spears' departure, officials plan to "move very thoughtfully and mindfully" to develop a new structure for the office, Spears said.
Spears said she was confident that the current OPAL staff could serve effectively as "point people" for the office, and that student events and services would not be interrupted.
Scherr, in an interview with The Dartmouth on Tuesday afternoon, called the official announcement of Crady's departure "abrupt," and said that Crady informed him last week of his decision to leave the College and return to Iowa, where he previously served as vice president of student services at Grinnell College. Crady, however, had mentioned earlier this summer that he might make such a move, Scherr said.
"He has a variety of opportunities right now that he is pursuing," Scherr told The Dartmouth. "I can't be public about those right now because these are things that are in the works, but he's looking at several possibilities."
Crady's departure coincides with Grinnell's search for a new president, as the college's current president, Russell Osgood, announced in May 2009 that he would step down in July 2010. Grinnell has hired the Boston-based search firm Isaacson, Miller the same firm responsible for Dartmouth's recent presidential search to manage the search process, according to Grinnell Director of Media Relations Cindy Deppe. Isaacson, Miller was founded by John Isaacson '68.
