Gregg Fairbrothers ’76, the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network’s founding director who teaches at the Tuck School of Business, will officially leave Tuck June 30. Students, alumni and faculty have rallied as news spread, circulating a petition that garnered over 270 signatures as of press time to keep Fairbrothers at Dartmouth.
Fairbrothers, who has taught at Tuck since 2004, wrote in an email that the Office of Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer notified him on April 28 that it would eliminate his position as Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network director. The next day, Tuck associate dean for the faculty Matthew Slaughter told Fairbrothers that Tuck would not ask him to teach his introductory and advanced entrepreneurship courses again, Fairbrothers wrote, declining to comment further.
Fairbrothers had planned to teach entrepreneurship in the Washington Fellowship, which will bring a group of 25 business and entrepreneurship leaders to Dartmouth through a new State Department program designed to spur economic advancements and strengthen democracy in sub-Saharan Africa.
Sarah Apgar Tu’11, the director of the New York City chapter of the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network, called Fairbrothers’s departure a “misinformed and shortsighted political decision that should be reversed” in an email. The decision, she wrote, was “personal and political,” as the College will soon shift to a new entrepreneurship center.
College spokesperson Justin Anderson confirmed that all entrepreneurship efforts will be coordinated by the Office of Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer, a move announced in April 2013. He added that Fairbrothers has contributed to the College’s entrepreneurial culture, which will be the foundation of the office’s work.
Anderson declined to comment further on specific criticisms and the reasons behind the decision.
“That Gregg would not be among this new effort’s senior leadership is foolish, as he has personally bred a majority of Dartmouth entrepreneurs,” Apgar wrote.
Some students who were aware of Fairbrothers’s departure said the news was surprising.
Salman Rajput ’14, who organized the petition, said he learned of the situation last week and was shocked that someone he considered an asset to the College would leave.
“This decision is not thinking about what is best for students, especially since so many students have benefited from his entrepreneurial teaching,” he said. “If you were to remove that, it would really be doing a disservice for all current and future students.”
Hilary Johnson ’15, who considers Fairbrothers a mentor, said his departure would be a “huge loss.”
“He really exemplifies a professor who is teaching people how to think and how to see differently,” Johnson said.
She said Fairbrothers’s impact on campus is not limited to his job description. He was instrumental in the Balkan Entrepreneurship Network, which brought 15 students from the region to Tuck last winter, where they took an introductory entrepreneurship class with him.
The petition urging the administration to keep Fairbrothers at Dartmouth asks signatories to email the relevant officials, including College President Phil Hanlon, Tuck Dean Paul Danos and incoming Provost Carolyn Dever by May 16. The petition also asks supporters to request a meeting with administrators by May 23.
“You can’t talk about entrepreneurship at Dartmouth without saying, ‘have you met Gregg Fairbrothers?’ the petition reads, noting that the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network has developed over 400 companies.
Kimberly Clark, who received a psychology and brain sciences Ph.D. from the College in 2004, said that the announcement surprised her, calling Fairbrothers the backbone of the entrepreneurship network. Clark cofounded a market research firm with Fairbrothers’s help.
“He is the only individual that I can think of that has the history and the context and the network to continue to grow it,” she said.
If the top spot is left vacant after June, the program’s quality could drop, she said.
Arpitha Dhanapathi Tu’15 said Fairbrothers’s supporters should speak with decision-makers in person if the petition and emails do not work.
Rajput said Hanlon emailed him about the petition, but Rajput, who declined to provide the email to The Dartmouth, said he has not yet initiated a conversation regarding the issue.
“At the moment we are trying to muster as much support as we can and then go to the administration,” he said.
Geisel School of Medicine professor Steve Woloshin called the petition “a multi-pronged effort” from a wide group of supporters.
An email circulated to the Apologia, a journal for which Fairbrothers was a mentor, advertised a gathering at Tuck’s Raether Hall on Tuesday at 12:15 p.m.
Rajput said that the decision not to invite Fairbrothers back to campus comes at an unseemly time, as the College furthers experiential learning.
“I think it’s a real affront to Hanlon’s and the administrative objective to get rid of the person who has been the strongest advocate of experiential learning and entrepreneurship before they were ever priorities of the College,” Rajput said.
