Mistaken Aims
To the Editor:
An article on the front page of the Friday, Oct. 23 issue of The Dartmouth seriously misrepresented my aim and plans for a Dartmouth study group to examine how we might make Dartmouth's leadership position in undergraduate education even stronger. While a subsequent correction in the print paper and online went a certain distance to correct that misrepresentation, I feel the need to go further.
As I told The Dartmouth's Editorial Board in a meeting on Oct. 20 and repeated in my remarks to the meeting of the General Faculty earlier this week, I have recently begun work to put together a simple study group composed of faculty and administrators, to look broadly at trends in undergraduate education and results-measurement techniques that have been effective in various institutions, including Dartmouth. I would plan to have student input into that process. The aim is to see if Dartmouth can have even more impact in this area.
None of this amounts in any way to an effort to "potentially reshape the College's approach to undergraduate education" as your story online still maintains. (I never even suggested such.) It amounts to a view that even the leader in a particular field can probably strengthen its performance which of course is something that leading organizations constantly seek to do and that this is one way Dartmouth can remain unexcelled in its commitment to undergraduate education.
Jim Yong KimPresident, Dartmouth CollegeHanover, N.H.
