College President Jim Yong Kim, who will be leaving Dartmouth to assume the presidency of the World Bank on June 30 after only two years and nine months in office, focused his tenure on leading the College through a financial crisis and raising its profile in health-related fields.
Following a 23-percent drop in the College's endowment in the 2009 fiscal year, Kim's first year in office, Kim turned his attention to organizing budget cuts in response to the $835 million loss. Kim announced $100 million in budget cuts in early 2010, targeting certain aspects of campus instead of implementing uniform reductions across all departments and programs. By 2011, the College had achieved 85 percent of its intended reductions.
The cuts maintained the College's policy of need-blind admission but eliminated the no-loan policy for students whose families make more than $75,000 per year. Multiple phases of layoffs of College staff were integral to the budget cuts, totaling about 2 percent of the College's non-teaching workforce. The controversial layoffs resulted in protests from Students Stand with Staff, which was founded during Kim's tenure to advocate more accountability in budget cuts and layoff decisions.
Laid-off workers received packages including four weeks working notice, a lump sum payment equivalent to between four and 52 weeks of pay depending on length of service and a health care subsidy. Kim, Provost Carol Folt and Senior Vice President and Strategic Advisor Steven Kadish also donated 10 percent of their salaries to a "hardship fund" for those who lost their jobs.
Kim enacted administrative restructuring as a part of the budget cuts in an attempt to create a leaner and more streamlined administration. The restructuring created the new position of chief of staff for David Spalding '76, as well as the Advancement division, overseen by Senior Vice President for Advancement Carrie Pelzel, who previously announced she will retire June 30.
Kim decided to renovate Thayer Dining Hall, now the Class of 1953 Commons, instead of creating a new building with a $12 million donation from the Class of 1953. The building was renovated to include energy-efficient modifications that also helped the College reduce spending.
Alongside his dedication to cutting College expenditures, Kim also championed various initiatives in line with his background in health. During Kim's tenure, the Geisel Medical School jumped in the U.S. News and World Report rankings from 67th to 38th place in primary care.
Jere Daniell, former history professor and unofficial College historian, said that the task of judging the legacy of Kim's tenure is difficult due to its relative briefness. He also said that Kim's appointment to the College's presidency was indicative of the increasing importance of Dartmouth's graduate schools.
"Kim as president represented an institutional recognition of the importance of associated schools the Tuck school, the medical school and the Thayer school," Daniell said.
Kim was instrumental in the founding of the Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Sciences, which was created with an anonymous $35 million donation in 2010 and encourages the collaboration between departments across Dartmouth's campus to solve health care delivery problems. The Center, which has received endorsements from Senators Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., as well as General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt '78, recently partnered with the Chinese Ministry of Health to help the most populous country in the world reform its health care system. Al Mulley '70, whom Kim appointed as the Center's director in 2010, served as the chair of the presidential search committee that selected Kim in 2009.
In response to the hazing controversy that has recently engulfed the College, Kim has emphasized his prioritization of student safety and health but seems to have avoided responsibility for addressing hazing, saying that he "barely [has] any power" to address the issue in a previous interview with The Dartmouth.
To confront other contentious campus issues, Kim created the Student and Presidential Committee for Alcohol Harm Reduction and the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault in 2010 in an effort to work with the Dartmouth community to address binge drinking and sexual assault. Kim announced the creation of the Learning Collaborative on High-Risk Drinking with 31 other colleges and universities in 2011. The Collaborative, an 18-month initiative for which members will convene for the last time in July, works to combat underage drinking across the nation.
Andrea Jaresova '12, co-director of Mentors Against Violence and liason to the SPSCA, said that the SPCSA has been a positive force on campus to create dialogue on sexual assault. However, she said that the impact of the president himself was minimal.
"I don't think it had a lot to do with Jim Kim," she said. "Many of the successes I would attribute to who was on the committee."
She expressed disappointment with the short length of Kim's tenure, noting that she could not judge the effectiveness of his committees after only three years.
Following the initial announcement of Kim's nomination to the World Bank presidency in March, a poll conducted using a convenience sample of 130 students suggested that members of the four current classes at Dartmouth hold varying perceptions of Kim's tenure. On a scale of 1 to 10, members of the Class of 2012, on average, rated their satisfaction with Kim's nearly three-year tenure a 4.26 out of 10, whereas members of the Class of 2015 rated their satisfaction a 6.85 out of 10. The Class of 2013 averaged 4.60 out of 10, and the Class of 2014 averaged 5.75 out of 10.
