College Registrar Meredith Braz also presented alternatives to the academic calendar that would alter the ending date of Winter term in order to better accommodate students who travel home for Thanksgiving break. Faculty members will vote on the various proposals in May, Braz said.
THE BUDGET
The College is "on track" to close the current $54-million spending gap by the end of the 2011 fiscal year, Kim said. The 5 percent growth in the endowment that was projected for this year has already been exceeded, according to Kim.
Kim said he expects the College's Strategic Budget and Reduction Initiative which was proposed in 2009 and sought to identify $100 million in expense reductions or new revenues for the fiscal years 2011 and 2012 will be declared complete at the Board of Trustees meeting on April 8 and 9.
In early February, Executive Vice President Steven Kadish said the College had achieved 85 percent of its intended reductions by that date, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Despite the "good news," Kim said the College must continue to actively maintain and meet the goals of the budget initiative. By the 2014 fiscal year, the Budget Committee hopes to balance College revenues and expenditures by reducing spending by $124 million, Kim said.
The College will not pursue any "further focused effort" to reduce the College's workforce, and will continue to "invest in important projects" such as the Hanover Inn, Visual Arts Center and the Class of 1953 Commons, Kim said.
Although the budget initiative was implemented quickly, College officials can now investigate "what was being cut too much and where we can reinvest," according to Kim.
One faculty member expressed concerns about the College's maintenance budget, inquiring whether it has been "cut beyond limits it can stand," which would reduce the morale of the College community.
Kim said the Budget Committee has fought to protect the annual maintenance budget approximately $40 million per year and is currently developing a maintenance capital spending plan that it will enact within the next few months.
Another faculty member asked about the College's preparation for possible cuts in federal funding, including cuts to Pell Grants and research grants.
The Budget Committee will attempt "to build for these cases in our budget" in anticipation of impending cuts, Kim said.
"Dartmouth is on the Consortium for Financing Higher Education," Kim said. "We're watching Washington very closely."
Art history professor and member of the Faculty Coordinating Committee Adrian Randolph said in an interview with The Dartmouth that the faculty is aware that "there is still work to be done" in balancing the College budget, but that "it is heartening to hear such optimism" from Kim.
DIVERSITY
Although the subject of diversity was not listed on the meeting's official agenda, the discussion turned to ways in which the College is attempting to increase its minority retention rates after a faculty member posed the question of how the recent budget cuts have impacted the Dean of the College's Office.
Kim said he hopes to revive the College Diversity Council that began in 1999 but that has not met in the past three years. Student concerns about diversity will guide the group's goals and discussions, according to Kim. In future months, the College will attempt to communicate its diversity plan in a more "focused manner."
In response to a faculty member's question, Kim said he acknowledges that students are "very upset" about recent resignations at the College and the general "lack of role models within the faculty and staff."
Kim said that following recent criticism of the administration, he met with student leaders from the Afro-American Society and Native Americans at Dartmouth and discussed the issue of diversity of campus.
Another faculty member requested an update on the search for the next dean of the College, as well as clarifications regarding the qualities desired by the administration and search committee for the permanent dean.
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael Mastanduno, who also chairs the search committee, said that while the search process is still in its early stages, the committee has a set of outlined priorities for the new dean, including the ability to act as a resource for students and set high standards.
"We also need someone who understands faculty members and will be able to work well with them," Mastanduno said. "It's ambitious and is going to be a challenge but we want to set the bar high."
The College has a history of taking positive steps to improve diversity on campus, according to Kim.
"We need to look back at the last 12 years, especially during [former College President Jim Wright's] time and honor everything great that we've done," Kim said. "We've come a long way."
During that period, the proportion of minority students rose from 20 to 40 percent, and the proportion of minority faculty members increased from 12 to 18 percent, according to Kim. Last year, 47.4 percent of faculty appointments were minorities, he said.
Kim said 17 "essential" positions in the Dean of the College's Office remain unfilled. To address this issue, members of the administration have worked to identify methods and resources that could be used to improve the minority experience on campus, he said.
Kim also outlined a plan that includes a critical assessment of the College's advising system. An improved advising system will help improve minority students' experiences on campus, Kim said.
STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS
Denise Anthony, sociology professor and research director for the Dartmouth Institute for Security, Technology and Society, outlined the structure and developments of the strategic planning process, a program designed to assess areas in need of institutional improvement, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Central to the planning process which will take approximately 18 to 24 months is a Faculty Advisory Committee that consists of 17 faculty members from all areas of the College, including the arts and sciences, Thayer School of Engineering and Tuck School of Business. Other committees include a Senior Leadership Committee, Senior Executive Advisory Committee and four "working groups," according to Anthony.
The working groups will consist of volunteer faculty members aiming to "facilitate conversations in the community about what's necessary to move Dartmouth forward," Anthony said.
The groups will discuss long-term plans for achieving the faculty's goals, with one group focusing on specific timelines for establishing how Dartmouth faculty should operate over the next 10 years, Anthony said. All groups will gather available data about their specific topics, will collect ideas on how to improve on their slated topic and will likely propose recommendations for areas where new programs can be implemented, according to Anthony.
Many faculty members who spoke at the meeting questioned the details of the planning process, worrying that the suggestions were too broad and would not address the needs of specific academic departments. One member described the process as "interesting but mysterious."
