The World Bank's board of directors is expected to select its next president on Monday or Wednesday, and College President Jim Yong Kim, a physician and global health expert whom President Barack Obama nominated on March 23, is expected to secure the position. Director of Media Relations Justin Anderson said the Board of Trustees will announce the College's interim president and the head of the presidential search committee "within the day or days immediately following the World Bank announcement" should Kim be elected.
Anderson said the U.S. Treasury told the College that the World Bank vote will take place on Monday, but The New York Times and other major news outlets have recently reported that the vote will not take place until Wednesday.
The search process to select Dartmouth's 18th president will begin after the announcement and will consider candidates from both within and outside the Dartmouth administration, Chairman of the Board of Trustees Stephen Mandel '78 previously told The Dartmouth said.
If Kim leaves the College, the interim president will be the first at Dartmouth College since 1995. Former College President James Wright served as acting College president while James Freedman, the president at the time, was on sabbatical after undergoing chemotherapy for testicular cancer. James Wright became Dartmouth's 16th president three years later.
President's Intern Jason Goodman '12, who has worked closely with the President's Office for the three years that Kim has been in office, said that an effective interim president needs to know the workings of the College's senior administration and work primarily to keep Dartmouth "stable." Above all, an interim president should leave the College in "good shape" and avoid crises so that Dartmouth can attract the best range of presidential candidates possible, he said.
"An interim president isn't here to cause radical change, just to keep the ship sailing smoothly," Goodman said. "It's important that the person is a calming influence."
Student Body President Max Yoeli '12 said that the interim president will need to be very familiar with the College to effectively prepare Dartmouth for its next president.
"The institution is in a state of disarray," Yoeli said. "We need someone who is willing to come in and make a sacrifice to get the institution on a level field."
Because the interim president will need to start work as soon as possible, it is "most likely" that the position will be filled by someone already at the College, he said.
Goodman said that Kim would have a difficult time coming back to the job of College president if he were not elected as World Bank president. Since Kim's nomination was announced, members of the Dartmouth community have judged Kim's presidency "as if it's over," and Kim would have to address these criticisms if he were to return to the post, Goodman said.
"That would change the way he would need to act in future matters of the College," he said.
