Re: Arts and Sciences faculty overwhelmingly vote in favor of creating School of Arts and Sciences
On July 1, 2025, Dartmouth officially launched its new “School of Arts and Sciences.” College President Sian Leah Beilock claims this allows Dartmouth to “enhance how we provide an exceptional, vibrant, and quintessential Dartmouth experience.” I think the opposite. It encourages administrative bloat and pulls the College further from the close-knit, human experience that defines it.
We already have arts and sciences at Dartmouth: the College. The small, cohesive community we all chose. Repackaging our core into a formal “school” is needless red tape, not progress. This move joins a troubling pattern around campus: constant construction that prizes growth over community and what seems like an increasing focus on research metrics at the cost of teaching excellence. In the 2024 Interim Report to the New England Commission of Higher Education, seven paragraphs are dedicated to the former while one and a half are dedicated to the latter. President Beilock frames this shift as empowering faculty and enhancing student support, but how does fragmenting our community into separate divisions with interim deans and implementation committees actually help anyone? How does a more complex organizational chart improve the classroom experience? It doesn't.
Besides, Dartmouth’s competitive advantage has never been in research. Students choose the College because it offers something increasingly rare: a liberal arts education at a scale where professors know your name and relationships matter. Real leadership means resisting the pressure to chase growth and prestige when they come at the cost of community. I’m not asking for Dartmouth to stay frozen in amber. I’m asking for changes that strengthen our identity.
President Beilock, I beg you to reconsider the trajectory you’re setting for Dartmouth. Stop trying to transform us into a mid-sized research university. Stop prioritizing growth over community. Stop replacing the College on the Hill with the bureaucracy on the Hill.
Catherine Lapey is a member of the Class of 2026. Letters to the Editor represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
