Q&A with College President Sian Leah Beilock

The Class of 2025 is capping off its time at Dartmouth at a complicated moment for universities. President Donald Trump has put the Ivy League in the national spotlight with his effort to cut federal funding and change aspects of higher education — most recently, attempting to bar Harvard University from enrolling international students. In some ways, Dartmouth has steered clear of the turmoil, the New York Times heralding the College as the “one Ivy League university [which] has avoided Trump’s retribution so far.” Still, over the past three months, Dartmouth’s community has engaged in discussions about the College’s role in the national political landscape. The Dartmouth sat down with College President Sian Leah Beilock to discuss these pressing issues and the graduating class. 

This is your second Commencement as president of Dartmouth. Is there anything specifically that you’re looking forward to? 

SLB: I always love Commencement. I’m really jazzed about our speaker and honorary degrees, and so I like meeting everyone and also just seeing the interactions on campus. 

This past year — or past year and a half — since you took office, has been an impossibly difficult time to be a university president. Through that adversity, is there any one achievement that really stands out to you? 

SLB: That’s an interesting question. Seeing Russo Hall come up on West Wheelock is exciting. As you, I am sure, are aware, oftentimes students, faculty, staff, administrators and alums don’t always have the same ideas about what’s best to do in all situations, but housing was something I heard uniformly in my talks across everyone. So it’s really nice to see movement there and to have that open in 2026. 

And then, on the flip side of that, is there anything you think you should have done differently? 

SLB: I really have enjoyed this year, spending lots of time with office hours and teaching and being more in informal settings with students. I think in your first year as president, you’re doing a lot, you’re meeting alums, you’re everywhere. And so I was excited to change that from my first year and just have more informal time to be with the students. 

The College, of course, has been in the limelight over the past few months, as all Ivy League institutions have been, and heralded as the one university that has “avoided the president’s wrath,” as The Economist put it. How do you think Dartmouth has been able to stand out among its Ivy League peers in this way? 

SLB: We’ve just been on a path to be clear about what we do — which is that we’re an educational institution. Whether it’s my inauguration, talking about brave spaces, the data that clearly showed the benefits of testing as part of a holistic admissions decision, all the work the faculty have done around dialogue, our faculty-led institutional restraint, our free expression policies — I think everything has been on a trajectory to have lots of different people, to have lots of different voices speak on campus. And so I don’t have the answer to your question, but I can say what we’ve focused on. 

I find it interesting that you bring up standardized testing. Can you elaborate on that? 

SLB: Again, it’s about figuring out how to have the best people and ideas on campus. And I think one thing the data showed was that we were missing low-income students, for example, who were deciding not to give their test scores because they didn’t think they were high enough, when, in fact, the way we look at admissions holistically, really, it was helpful to have those scores. 

Another point of contention I wanted to ask you about was the American Association of Colleges and Universities letter. You received some flack and some support for being the only Ivy League president to not sign a letter standing up for higher education. You explained this choice by saying that it wasn’t a letter that you co-authored, and that distinction was important to you. Can you elaborate on that?

SLB: Again, I’ve never signed a letter I didn’t write. When you guys wrote your op-ed, you didn’t really differentiate that, but what I’ve done in the past, I’ve always written — which I think is really important. It is something that I think allows me to be true to my voice and to be true to the principles of the institution. And I also think that action is the best way to have an impact here. And we’ve done that. We’ve opposed measures that we think lead to government overreach through legal action. We just, as you know, signed on to an amicus brief. I want to be able to speak in my own voice. 

Shifting to a different topic, this issue of The Dartmouth is all about women at Dartmouth — 50 years from the last all-male, four-year class. How do you think your position as the first female president at Dartmouth has shaped your experience and perception on campus?

SLB: I mean, it’s really a significant position to be the first woman in the Wheelock Succession, and I think it’s part of who I am. I think what I can do is bring a new perspective to Dartmouth as a president who wasn’t an undergraduate here, and certainly I bring lessons and values being a woman as well.

How do you think that impacts the way you approach campus, or shapes policies you set? 

SLB:  I mean, I don’t know if I attribute this to being a woman per se, but as a person, I constantly seek out voices that might be in opposition to what I think. I’ve seen the value of that from being in fields where there were [fewer] women at the table, and the power of those voices. 

I’m glad you bring this up. Dialogue, in my mind, has been sort of the hallmark of your tenure. It was on your agenda from day 1. Some students have expressed to us in a recent survey that they don’t necessarily feel totally safe expressing their opinions on campus. What would you say to those critics, and where do you see Dartmouth Dialogues moving forward? 

SLB:  First, I always think it’s important to look at the data. When surveys go out, who responds, how many people respond, and so, I’d be a little, I think, understanding how many on your data team, how many responses you got, and what that actually represents is pretty important. I think you guys had about a 4% response rate, if I’m not mistaken. I think about 200 students responded out of 4,500. 

Yes, normally we have around 200-250 responses. 

SLB: Yeah. I mean, I just want to think about that, and how I interpreted that and talked about it, but I’m always interested in people who don’t feel like their voices can be heard, and we have to figure out how to do that. I’ve taken solace in the fact that over 10,000 people have gone to Dialogues events this year. And I would say to all students who don’t feel like their voices can be heard, let’s figure out how to make them heard and how to feel like you can be in a brave space on campus, whether that’s through class, whether that’s in other fora. You know, I really do believe in the power of dialogue. I think it’s more important than ever. And I think this is something that I’ve been able to uplift, but I didn’t start it. This is something that is a long history at Dartmouth. And I think our faculty in Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies, for example, really exemplified that after Oct. 7.  

I remember going to the series of events after Oct. 7 between different Dartmouth professors from the Jewish and Middle Eastern studies departments. And I remember being really, really affected by that. 

SLB: I think they modeled what it was like to have a brave conversation. 

Do you have any memory of Dartmouth ’25s exemplifying that, too? 

SLB: I’ve seen it in so many different spaces. I see it constantly. Members of the senior class pushing on me in the class I taught on athletics, asking questions. I teach with a lot of data, I challenge people to push at the data. So I saw it there. At the beginning of the year, I met with the Class of 2025, as I did last year, to hear about how they described their class, as we were thinking about Commencement speakers. And that was a really great conversation. And they were pushing at each other. Some people wanted a certain kind of speaker. Others pushed back. 

Another thing I wanted to ask about was the situation for international students on campus. Can you tell me more about how Dartmouth has protected its international students and what the plan is going forward? Is there any thought of becoming a “sanctuary campus?” That’s an idea we hear a lot about at the paper. 

SLB: Students, faculty and staff are just a really important part of our campus and community, and we will do everything we can to support them. The Office of Visa and Immigration Services is a really important part of that, making sure they know what their rights are, everything having to do with visas, helping to connect them with legal help if they need it. And then, of course, we have a new International Student Experience Office that started this year again to help international students in terms of what happens on campus. I think we’ve been clear, and we’re always trying to clarify that we have policies and practices in place and we are going to do everything we can within the bounds of the law to support our international students. 

When people use words like “sanctuary campus,” I always ask, what does that actually mean to you? Do people have to have particular warrants to come on campus in our private spaces? Yes, but we are a boundaryless campus. Anyone can walk on our campus, and so my goal is to make sure that we’re very clear about what it means to be in our private spaces, and that we are supporting our students and any international person to the best of our ability. 

There’s no doubt that members of the Class of 2025 are entering an uncertain world. What’s your advice to them? 

SLB: My first gut reaction is that I hope they bring a little bit of Dartmouth with them, which means finding the common humanity in people, listening, speaking up, being vocal. And I think we have such a really amazing community of alums who want to help, of people on campus, of peers. I talked to a lot of students who are going off to next successful steps, and again, I hope they bring that kind of sense of community to whatever they do.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.