April's reorganization of the College administration reflects the historical trend of Dartmouth presidents to restructure their administrative teams in hopes of increasing efficiency and transparency. Although College President Jim Yong Kim has not specifically said that the administrative reorganization was motivated by budgetary concerns, administrators at other schools have said they instituted comparable structural changes to alleviate financial deficits.
Previous College presidents have had "a year or two" in which they typically made initial changes, according to history professor emeritus and unofficial College historian Jere Daniell '55. Once the changes have been made, the "administration is doing what it's supposed to do" and focusing on day-to-day operations, Daniell said.
A restructuring of the administration is very typical for a new president, Daniell said, pointing to former College president James Freedman, who altered the administrative structure at Dartmouth by appointing an institutional provost when he took office in 1987. John Strohbehn was the first to fill the position, which was designed to "[protect] the president from hands-on management," Daniell said.
"Any time a new president comes in, there is some kind of general reorganization of the administration," Daniell said.
William Zumeta, senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, said there is "nothing unusual at all" about the restructuring of an administration after a new president is inaugurated.
"Each leader comes in with their own ideas about how to organize," Zumeta said. "Some things that existed in the past may not be well suited to the future as the new leader sees it. The local people may not see any other way to do it, but that's why you bring in new blood."
A major administrative restructuring was implemented under the presidencies of John Sloan Dickey and John Kemeny, Daniell said. Choosing administrators became much more important after Dickey mandated that the Board of Trustees should decide the outgoing president's successor and Kemeny reduced normal term length for College presidents, he said.
Dickey instituted "personnel changes rather than the structural changes" when he became president in 1945, Daniell said.
"His most dramatic change was that a young untenured man named Don Morrison became dean of the faculty," he said. "Dickey basically professionalized the faculty he instituted the formal requirement of a Ph.D. [and] he coined the phrase teacher-scholar.'"
Former College president James Wright did not introduce any significant changes to the administrative structure, according to Daniell.
The newly-created chief of staff position in the President's Office which will be filled by current Vice President of Alumni Relations David Spalding '76 is not a unique position for a college or university president to create, Zumeta said.
"There's a lot of ways to organize a sizable organization like Dartmouth," Zumeta said. "There's no one way to do it. Our president here [at the University of Washington College of Education] has a chief of staff and the previous one didn't."
Dartmouth Medical School professor Lee Witters who said he has not witnessed any "major shakeups" in the administration in his 25 years at Dartmouth said he believes that the chief of staff position could be a positive force in the administration as long as Spalding does not act as a "filter" for Kim by isolating him from the faculty and student body.
"President [Barack] Obama moves into the White House and gets his own chief of staff," Witters said. "Any leader coming into a place has the right to get someone to work with her or him. That's absolutely appropriate."
Even though previous Dartmouth presidents have not traditionally employed chiefs of staff, Witters said he believes that many presidents still approached certain members of their administrative team and consulted them in a similar function.
"Although [Wright] didn't have a chief of staff so-named, his administrative assistant, Sheila Culbert, was functioning like that," he said.
Daniell said that Kemeny also consulted with his executive assistant Alex Fanelli '42 much as Daniell expects Kim will discuss matters with Spalding.
While other Ivy League presidents do not typically have a chief of staff, Gregory Rost currently serves as vice president and chief of staff in the office of University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann.
Witters said that many members of the Dartmouth community view the administrative restructuring as a positive move for the College.
"[Kim] paid a lot of attention to organizational structure, and who talks to whom," Witters said. "Will that improve? Parkhurst has always been an impenetrable place."
He added that the new structure may create more administrative efficiency and improve cross-departmental idea development.
The administrative restructuring which some have called an attempt to cut the budget is seen among higher education experts as a legitimate way to deal with economic woes, according to Zumeta.
Kim's administrative reorganization was probably instituted because of economic pressures, Witters said, explaining that the consolidation cut jobs and increased efficiency.
Other Ivy League institutions have also looked to reduce the size of their administration to save money. Four administrators left the Office of the Provost at Cornell University in July and other administrative changes are expected to reduce the University's $215-million budget deficit, according to the University-run Cornell Chronicle.
Yale University is in the midst of an administrative overhaul known as YaleNext to establish a more efficient, business-like model, according to the Yale Daily News. The initiative will focus largely on consolidating certain aspects of human resources and information technology, according to Jeff Denneen, a partner with Bain & Company and a senior member of Bain's higher education practice who has advised Cornell throughout its budget reconciliation process.
Schools faced with reductions of over 10 to 15 percent of the budget often look to restructure their administration as a way to cut costs, Denneen said.
"You have to protect the core mission [of the institution]," Denneen said. "The way to do that is to look to deliver administrative services in a less costly, more effective way."
Consolidation in university administrations usually yields positive results, he said.
"In most universities, there are really unclear roles," he said. "There's tremendous redundancy. One of the great things about this process is you really clarify who is supposed to be playing what role, or what should be done in that unit. Consolidation of administration isn't just about moving boxes it's about rethinking the way you run the university and driving to a point of tremendous clarity for who should do what."
In previous years, Dartmouth has restructured the administration to alleviate budgetary problems, according to Daniell.
"There's always been budget issues," Daniell said. "That's a primary concern of every administration. Once during Kemeny's administration salaries were frozen for a couple of years. But that's sort of routine, since salaries are such a big part of the expenses."
The University of California instituted major administrative restructuring initiatives beginning in 2007, which later became driven by budget reductions, according to Michael Reese, associate vice president for business operations at UC.
"You have to figure out where you can achieve efficiencies so you can stretch those dollars," Reese said. "We want to move dollars back into teaching and research, and administration is where you start."
Drastic changes to the UC administration include the elimination of administrative positions in the UC Berkeley Division of Equity and Inclusion, The Daily Californian reported.
The Office of the President also launched plans to consolidate functions, including institutional research and technology support, according to Reese. More than 600 positions in the UC Office of the President have already been eliminated, Leslie Sepuka, media specialist for the office, said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth.
The new structure which reduces the number of people who report directly to the president to five shows Kim's commitment to efficiency and implementation of ethical principles, according to Aine Donovan, executive director of the Ethics Institute.
"It's a step forward," Donovan said. "There was a time when Dartmouth was a little, small college and the president could have a lot of direct reports. [Kim] is trying really hard to be transparent, which is the best ethical principle of any leader."
Kim's actions thus far make him most similar to Dickey, according to Daniell. Both Dickey and Kim have a focus on internationalism and "they both use existing student organizations as training grounds for cooperative leadership in making the world a better place," Daniell said.
"I put Kim potentially in the category of [former Presidents William Jewett] Tucker, [Ernest Martin] Hopkins and Dickey as people who are asked to have a personal imprint of the institution rather than fulfill assignments that the Trustees determine," Daniell said. "But that's just guesswork."
