Beginning next year, College President Jim Yong Kim will focus on a new "strategic planning process" to shape a long-term vision for the College, according to College officials. He will also continue his work forming the Center for health Care Delivery Science, student committees on alcohol and sexual assault policy and a revamped academic advising system.
The challenges that dominated Kim's first year in office a contentious Board of Trustees race, administrative reorganization and a $100-million budget shortfall have been largely resolved, allowing the administration to focus on the new initiatives.
"Not only did we solve the financial problem, we did it with a minimum of layoffs, and we're now ready to take on strategic planning," Kim said in a meeting with The Dartmouth Editorial Board.
Issues with the budget "derailed" Kim's first year in office, prohibiting him from starting new programs, according to acting Dean of the College Sylvia Spears.
"Our priority was to find a way to get the budget in a place where we could move forward," Spears said. "As we move forward now that we've tackled this first year of budget matters, we can think of where we would like to grow in the College."
Officials have yet to determine the "logistics" of the strategic planning process, but they have begun reaching out to members of the Dartmouth community, according to Spears.
"It begins with asking questions from the community like, What do we hope from Dartmouth? Where's Dartmouth's niche in the future? What should students know and be able to do when they leave here?'" Spears said.
Shortly after the Board of Trustees meeting in April, Kim began holding meetings with small groups of faculty members, typically meeting with "seven to 15" faculty members at a time, Chief of Staff David Spalding said.
The conversations are an "informal" way for faculty to give their input about the strategic planning process, according to Spears.
"As I understand it and again, it's very preliminary some of the first steps are just going to be what they're calling campus dialogues, or campus conversations about what do we hope for in terms of the future at Dartmouth," Spears said.
Spalding said he anticipates administrators will have finalized the initiatives they plan to propose to the Board of Trustees by "no later than the February [2010] Board meeting."
Although Spalding said that it was too "early in the process" to list many new initiatives, he said Kim hopes to continue working on changes implemented during his first year in office, including the newly announced Center for Health Care Delivery Science.
"[The Center] is a very exciting new initiative for the College," Spalding said. "It allows more study opportunities that bring together the undergraduate with the [graduate-level schools]. One expectation is that the strategic planning process will yield other opportunities like that to take advantage of what is at the College."
To determine other such initiatives, newly appointed College Provost Carol Folt will likely hold meetings with students in the Fall, when many people are on campus, to solicit their input, College officials said.
"I think you'll see those [efforts] start at some point probably after Commencement and much more into the Fall to engage the whole community in a series of quasi-intimate dialogues," Spears said. "If we were dreaming about Dartmouth, what would we dream?' And I think you'll see [Kim] and Provost Folt engaged in those activities."
Kim will also continue his work with the Student and Presidential Alcohol Harm Reduction Committee and the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault, College officials said.
Kim also hopes to create a more streamlined model for the academic advising system, Spalding said, by concentrating advising resources in one centralized area in order to maximize efficiency and minimize confusion for students.
Kim has also discussed plans to create a potential two-year graduate program and center for writing at the College during a meeting with The Dartmouth opinion staff.
The Board recruited Kim to come to the College in part because of his ability to enact major changes, Spalding said.
"This is really what the [Board] was looking for President Kim to do when they invited him to lead the College," Spalding said. "They weren't looking at him to deal with the budget crisis, although he did that aptly."
The strategic planning process is part of a larger effort to "determine the emphasis of the College over the next few years," Spears said.
Kim's emphasis on the sciences at Dartmouth has generated criticism in the past, causing some to speculate that the College is focusing less on liberal arts undergraduate education.
In a previous interview with The Dartmouth, Jon Appleton, who was a music professor at Dartmouth for 38 years and who currently works at the University of California Santa Cruz, said he thought the College's "financial trouble" had led the Board of Trustees to appoint a president who would take the focus away from the liberal arts.
"Where is the money today? It's largely in science and health care. That's why Kim was appointed. The College has become kind of a satellite of the medical establishment in Hanover," Appleton said.
Spears said members of the Dartmouth community should "wait and see" what the new changes bring before making judgments about science-focused initiatives like the Center.
"The strength of Dartmouth is that it provides a vibrant liberal arts education," Spears said. "That's our niche. It makes us unique that we do that in the hills of the Upper Valley. I don't believe that's going to change."
Kim hopes to engage students in new ways to encourage them to become leaders in the community and in the world, according to Spears. He participates in what he refers to as a "higher [education] study group," where he reads studies that describe how students learn and utilize critical thinking and collaboration skills, Spears said.
Kim will focus on encouraging the "habits of the mind" that will allow students to lead, and the "habits of the heart" that will allow them to help others, Spears said.
"I think he's going to work to retain all of the strengths Dartmouth has, and link those past strengths to future innovations," Spears said. "And that can be innovation in teaching, innovation in health care, innovation of delivery of services. He's a mover and a shaker. I think there will be a time when Dartmouth will be known for key areas of expertise where other colleges will come to us to solve their problems and see what we do."
Staff writer Angie Yang contributed reporting to this article.
