The arrival of a new College president, the departure of several high level administrators and continued debate over alumni governance marked Dartmouth's Summer 2009 term.
NEW COLLEGE PRESIDENT
Jim Yong Kim took over as College President on July 1, citing his belief in Dartmouth students' bility to tackle global problems as one motivating factor in his decision to assume the post.
ADMINISTRATIVE TURNOVER
Several senior officials left the College, in addition to former College President James Wright, who stepped down when Kim took office. Dean of the College Tom Crady abruptly nnounced his resignation in August after working at Dartmouth for 20 months, calling his departure a "family decision."
Crady, at that time, said that he planned to return to Iowa, where he previously served as vice president of student services at Grinnell College.
Sylvia Spears, director of the Office of Pluralism and Leadership and acting senior associate dean, will serve acting Dean of the College for two years while the College searches for a permanent replacement.
Less than a month after Crady's resignation, Dean of Undergraduate Students Rovana Popoff also announced her departure. Popoff will return to the University of Chicago to finish a dissertation in political science and to serve as deputy dean for academic affairs.
Popoff served as the Dean of Upperclass Students from 2007 until August 2009, when the Upperclass Dean's Office was merged with the First-Year Office.
ALUMNI GOVERNANCE
Dartmouth filed a motion for summary judgment in the current alumni lawsuit against the College in July, effectively an attempt to have the case decided without a full trial. The motion argues that the plaintiffs' claims were settled by the previous suit brought by the Association of Alumni and cannot be re-argued the legal principle of res judicata. All seven plaintiffs have made contributions to the Hanover Institute, which funded the first lawsuit against the College.
The alumni filed a response to the motion in September, asserting that res judicata is irrelevant because the parties to the current lawsuit were not party to the prior suit.
Former Dartmouth Trustee Todd Zywicki '88, who was denied reelection to a second term on the College's Board this past Spring a process that has historically been routine submitted a brief in support of the alumni earlier this month.
In August, the College's Association of Alumni formed an Election Reform Study Committee to assess whether current campaign rules should be modified for Board of Trustees and Association Executive Committee elections in response to increased spending in recent campaigns.
In July, Dartmouth Board of Trustees Chairman Ed Haldeman '70 was named chief executive officer of Freddie Mac, the beleaguered government-sponsored loan organization. Haldeman served as chairman of the board of directors of Putnam Investment Management prior to taking his new position at Freddie Mac. As of July, Haldeman had not decided whether he will remain as chairman of the College's Board in light of his new position at Freddie Mac.
RESEARCH
Dartmouth received a $3-million grant from the National Science Foundation for the Trustworthy Information Systems for Healthcare project, an initiative to create secure computer systems to manage health care information. The project aims to keep health information secure while allowing health professionals to access data. Very little health care information is currently stored and transmitted electronically.
The funding will be used to assist several research and collaborative projects already underway and will allow for the hiring of new staff.
CAMPUS EXPANSION
The Hanover Planning Board approved the College's proposed design for a Visual Arts Center, and construction is scheduled to begin in Spring 2010. The board had at first postponed the vote due to a number of e-mails and letters from Hanover residents who argued that the proposal did not meet the long-term design goals for the downtown area.
PETIT
One of the suspects in the 2007 home invasion in which Hayley Petit, who was to be a member of the Class of 2011, was killed is now seeking a change of venue for the trial because of pretrial publicity. Joshua Komisarjevsky, and the other suspect, Steven Hayes, allegedly entered the Petit's family home, demanding that the family withdraw $15,000 from the bank, and killed Petit, along with her sister, Michaela Petit, and her mother, Jennifer Hawke-Petit.
USMAN
Mohammad Usman, a former member of the Class of 2010, was sentenced over the summer to three years of probation, including six months of home detention, as well as a $2,000 fine, after pleading guilty in April to financial aid fraud. Usman was also fined $200 of additional "special assessment" charges and required to complete 100 hours of community service.
Usman pled guilty to charges of fraud after falsely claiming internship funding, financial aid and grants from the College. He illegally obtained $18,615 from the College.
WILLIS-STARBUCK
The 24-year prison sentence of Christopher Hollis for the 2005 fatal shooting of Meleia Willis-Starbuck '07 was upheld in a state appeals court, despite Hollis' lawyers' argument that the original judge in the case had made sentencing errors that violated Hollis' constitutional rights.
