Bill Helman '80, a member of the Board of Trustees and partner at the venture capital firm Greylock, will serve as the chair of the Presidential Search Committee tasked with selecting the 18th College president in light of College President Jim Yong Kim's imminent departure for the World Bank, according to a College press release. Board member Diana Taylor '77 will be vice chair of the committee.
Further details about the composition and goals of the search committee will be announced in the coming weeks. The College aims to form a group similar to the committee that selected Kim three years ago and that included representatives from various "key constituencies," according to the release.
"Bill Helman brings extensive experience in recruiting leadership for a range of for-profit and non-profit organizations," Chairman of the Board Stephen Mandel '78 said in the release. "He appreciates the complexity of leading academic institutions and will do a great job in encouraging members of the Dartmouth community to share their thoughts about the qualities of leadership that will best serve the College."
Helman said in the release that the success of Kim's presidency will leave a "strong foundation," allowing the committee to generate a "world-class field of candidates."
On the Board, Helman is the chair of the Investment Committee, which helps manage Dartmouth's endowment. A Board member since 2009, he also serves on the board of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. He has been a managing partner at Greylock since 1997 and sits on the boards of the Harvard Management Company, Ford Motor Company, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the Broad Institute, the Steppingstone Foundation and Zipcar. Helman majored in history and minored in economics as a student at the College and received his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1984.
Taylor is currently the managing director of the investment firm Wolfensohn and Company and served as the superintendent of banks for New York State from 2003 to 2007. She studied economics while at Dartmouth and went on to earn her MBA and master's in public health from Columbia University. She has been a member of the Board since 2008.
Kim's presidency has included significant efforts to bolster Dartmouth's graduate programs, including the creation of the 20x20 initiative, which aims to propel the Geisel School of Medicine into the top 20 medical schools in the country by 2020. Both Helman and Taylor have experience working with Ivy League graduate programs: Helman is currently a member of the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows, and Taylor serves on the boards of the Columbia University School of Business and the Mailman School of Public Health. Helman is also the trustee representative to the Thayer School of Engineering Board of Overseers and the chair of the Geisel School of Medicine Board of Overseers.
Mandel said that while he cannot predict how quickly the search committee will select the College's next president, he expects the search process to be "smoother" than the search for Kim because "political issues" that the Board faced in 2008 have since been resolved. The Presidential Search Committee will solicit names and recommendations from members of all areas of the Dartmouth community, according to Mandel.
The composition of the search committee will likely be similar to that of the committee that selected Kim, Mandel said. The 2008 search committee consisted of 14 members which included six trustees, six faculty members, an alumna and a student.
The "search document" that the committee will compile, outlining the committee's goals for selecting the College's next president, will be based on the leadership statement written by the last search committee, Mandel said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
The 2008 leadership statement, which formed the basic criteria that the previous search committee used to select Kim, asserted that the next president needed to articulate a comprehensive vision for Dartmouth that would strengthen the academic reputation of the College and its professional schools while building consensus among students, faculty and alumni.
In addition to seeking a president with a strong resource-allocation strategy, the 2008 leadership statement emphasized the importance of allocating resources to strengthen Dartmouth's doctoral programs and professional schools Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering and the Tuck School of Business. The statement called for candidates with a commitment to graduate education and experience with graduate-level institutions.
Specifically, the committee that selected Kim stated that it was looking for candidates who had experience with and knowledge of medical schools, and "an appreciation for their complexity and the opportunities they offer to higher education and to society." The 2008 statement also contended that issues pertaining to the Medical School and the College's relationship with Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center would "figure prominently in the president's agenda."
Mandel announced on Tuesday that Provost Carol Folt will assume the role of interim president on July 1 and will serve in that role until the next president is chosen. Folt said she will not be considered for the permanent position.
