Dartblog

It seems that the College is yet again looking to hire a sustainability director. The first holder of the position, one Jim Merkel (picture right), boasted that he had lived for many years on a personal budget of $5,000/year. He lasted only about two years on the job, and after the position remained open for eight months, it was finally filled by Kathy Lambert ‘90 in the spring of 2008.

Lambert endured until this past February, when she resigned in order to pursue an unspecified “new opportunity in sustainability working on issues of regional and national policy,” according to Provost Folt. No further detail was provided.

If you want the job, here is what you have to be able to do:

The Director will lead, under the guidance of the Provost and a faculty advisory committee, the development of Dartmouth’s sustainability strategy and implementation, integrating sustainable principles and practices into the operations and culture of the institution. The Director will lead the communication effort, with the help of colleagues, faculty and students, to make Dartmouth “the greenest campus in the country”. The Director will evaluate opportunities for feasibility, cost effectiveness, and acceptability by the Dartmouth community; create implementation plans; help implement approved plans; and assess their effectiveness. The Director will work with students and colleagues to build support and understanding of sustainability projects and issues.

The job is listed as being at the College’s PDL C level, so you can expect a salary between $72,100 and $122,700, lavish health and pension benefits, and over five weeks of paid vacation each year, plus holidays.

Picking up on yesterday’s thought, would it be curmudgeonly to note that for the same money the College could hire a superb young professor — even if we did not get brownie points for being fashionable? This would be a better choice than yet another revolving door professional whose job should be the integral responsibility of Linda Snyder, our Chief Facilities Officer, and her staff.

There is no eccentric more eccentric than an eccentric Scot. On D-Day in 1944 Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat, instructed his personal bagpiper to wade ashore in Normandy unarmed, playing his pipes. The piper did so, inspired the men on Sword Beach, and despite casualties all around him, survived.

Bill Millin died on Tuesday.

I have no comment on this poster which appeared on bulletin boards all over campus — except to say that families who spent their hard-earned money to pay for their child’s Dartmouth education might wonder if this is an appropriate use of tuition monies.

A thoughtful analyst has written in to comment on Dartmouth’s surge in the US News rankings:

I’m glad to be able to read your thoughtful commentary on Dartblog again, none more than your article on Provost Folt the other day. So I was a bit perplexed, although not surprised, at her take on Dartmouth’s step up from #11 to #9 in the US News rankings.

The College has improved in a “number of areas,” according to Folt, including increased alumni giving, greater faculty resources and decreased class sizes.

“It’s really the sum of all those small increments that changed our rankings,” Folt said.

I don’t think a whole lot of the US News college rankings, but I do follow them in a “for entertainment purposes only” kind of way. And one thing that stands out about this year’s rankings is the change in methodology. So I asked myself, did Dartmouth really improve in the areas that US News measures, or were they the beneficiary of this change in methodology?

The new formula appears to have helped Dartmouth in this year’s USNWR rankings. Here are the methodology changes and how they impact Dartmouth.

1) Graduation Rate weighting increased from 5% to 7.5%. Dartmouth was 11th in grad rate so this change doesn’t really hurt or help Dartmouth.

2) Peer Assessment weighting was reduced from 25% to 15%. This undoubtedly helped Dartmouth. For some reason Dartmouth has traditionally had the lowest PA value of all the ivies. It was 4.3 out of 5 this year. This year the ‘ouch’ counted much less.

3) High school guidance counselor assessment. This is new this year and carries a weighting of 7.5%. Dartmouth is thought more highly of by the GC’s than their collegiate peers and scored 4.7 out of 5. #5 Penn only scored 4.5 and #9 Chicago, tied with D, scored 4.6.

The other factors and weightings remained the same.

So what is Provost Folt taking credit for? Her post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning ignores much more relevant factors. Keep in mind that other than peer and GC assessment, all of US News’ numbers are for the 08-09 school year. Thus, the arrival of Dr. Kim is not reflected in this year’s ranking for the most part. The one-time bump from the change in methodology is now in the past and the real work lies ahead. I hope that the Dartmouth administration has a better sense of cause and effect as it assesses the effectiveness, or not, of the improvements they undertake.

After scouring Dartblog’s databases concerning the College, I can’t think of any concrete reasons — other than the above re-weighting — that would cause Dartmouth to leap from 11th place to a three way tie for 9th place in the US News ranking. Can you? Dean Folt’s reasons are not born out in the numbers.

Last week D columnist Jasper Hicks ‘12 had the temerity to ask whether the College should be funding a campus group called the Sexperts (not to be confused with the memorable 1965 film of the same name). Needless to say, he was pilloried by the well-meaning, who asserted the importance of this program (budget unknown; aren’t they all?).

The College’s work in this area seems to have experienced a good deal of mission creep, moving from basic issues of birth control, reproductive health and sexual hygiene to include activities relating solely to diverse forms of sexual pleasure, including a workshop on bondage and information on practices that first came to this author’s attention many years ago in certain merchant marine ports of call.

(Disclaimer: Just kidding. I was never in the merchant marine.)

Response to Hick’s opinion in The D’s comments section and another D column asserted how very, very important it was that students be educated in this type of thing — that sexual pleasure was a critical part of life.

Now I don’t disagree with the latter proposition, but it strikes me that the argument on both sides is missing a step: neither side asked the central question that should animate all budgeting debates at Dartmouth:

Is the proposed expenditure the highest and best use of the College’s limited resources in accomplishing its mission?

The Trustees defined the College’s mission not too long ago, as follows:

Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge.

My opinion, and I think that it is easily defensible if you accept the above terms of debate, is that Dartmouth would be better off spending money to hire additional professors in those departments where students are routinely turned away from oversubscribed courses, rather than educating students about the various means to sexual enjoyment (as opposed to sexual health). With the smarts necessary to merit an Ivy League education, I am confident that our undergraduates have the ability to research that special question for themselves.

Note: Advancing the argument that there are a great many other programs at the College that do not meet the above test will not get you anywhere. In fact, by doing so, you make my point for me. Once funding for the Sexperts is cut back, we can move onto the many other wasteful programs whose funding impedes Dartmouth from offering the quality of education that one should expect here.

Dartmouth has always had a peculiar disadvantage in the U.S. News rankings, in that it is a small college competing—by choice—in a category filled almost exclusively with research leviathans; we do not aspire to be them, because they are inhumane and boring; nor do we aspire to be the less potent lights in the “liberal arts” category. The hybridity takes a toll. Dartmouth suffers too generally, because the genius of the U.S. News rankings is in its vicissitude. Since both the facts and the formulae drawing on them change each year, so do the rankings. Since the actual best college, indiscernible though the holder of that title remains, probably does not change frequently, this is brilliant (because dynamic) and unassailable (because fictional) journalism. It remains true, of course, that any ranking which suggests to consumers that Harvard College is the sine qua non of American undergraduate life is, of course, crap.

This year, Dartmouth is #9, which is an improvement. Congratulations to the administration.

Joe Asch notes: Not to be a wet blanket — at least any more than usual — but we are now ranked 9th in a tie with Duke and the University of Chicago. The school placing immediately after our three-way tie is Northwestern, which is ranked 12th. By that measure, I guess we are no longer ranked 11th.

And we did keep our top ranking in last year’s new category: Best Colleges: Undergraduate Teaching at National Universities.

Yesterday’s post has brought to light various stories about Provost Carol Folt, with whom I have had direct experience myself. In 2006 as Dean of the Faculty she cancelled a writing program, the Departmental Editing Program, that I had funded for nine years, one that had broad faculty and student support and was costing the College virtually nothing. Her notice letter to me, which led to the layoff of three dedicated writing editors, contained the following gem of turgid academic writing:

You need not take a position on the content of Dean Folt’s letter in order to appreciate its shambolic nature. Her decision, shall we say, was not on the merits. In fact, the word on Carol is that if she gives you three or more reasons for a decision, you can be quite sure that the real reason is not among them.

More recently, the story has made the rounds that Folt declined to review a lengthy report because the graphics on its first page weren’t to her liking. In fact, the Provost’s office has a reputation as being a “black hole” — the place where ideas go to die. People avoid working with her because she is so fearful of any innovation — particularly when students put forward an initiative; the real trick at Dartmouth is to structure an idea in such a way that the Provost’s Office does not have any authority over it.

However Folt’s trump card is one that Jim Wright used often to effect his purposes: the will of the faculty. When she states that “the faculty would not approve” of a proposal, the listener must understand that the end of the line has been reached. No more powerful interlocutor may be invoked to end a conversation than someone who is not in the room. I have to wonder if members of the faculty are aware of this tactic; a great many decisions in the Provost’s office are being made in their name.

Although alumni have long lamented Dartmouth’s drift towards university status, the most significant move in that direction took place this past term with the elevation of Provost Carol Folt’s position in the administrative hierarchy of the College.

Previously, Dartmouth had had a weak Provost as compared to other schools where the Provost is the chief academic officer. At the College, traditionally both the Dean of the Faculty and the Provost reported directly to the President, with the Dean taking responsibility for the undergraduate College of Arts & Sciences and the Provost overseeing the three professional schools, facilities, and other areas. These lines of responsibility reflected Dartmouth’s emphasis on its undergraduate program.

However, under the recent realignment of responsibilities, the Dean of the Faculty now reports directly to the Provost, and although there is a footnote in the organization chart below about the Dean having a “dotted line report” to the President, few are fooled, especially given the recent short-circuited elevation of Mike Mastanduno to the Deanship from Associate Dean of the Social Sciences, where he had already reported directly to Carol Folt. One does not have to consult the Art History department to understand the meaning of this fig leaf footnote.

It is no secret that Carol Folt bucked hard for the Presidency of the College; it is even less of a secret that the faculty made known its displeasure at this possibility to the members of the presidential search committee and to the Trustees themselves. This second point seems to be common knowledge to everyone in Hanover except newly arrived President Kim, who has given central Presidential responsibilities to Folt. In fact, Kim did not even want to attend the weekly, half-day meetings of the Committee Advisory to the President (CAP) at which final faculty promotion and tenure decisions are made — traditionally a core responsibility of Dartmouth Presidents and a symbol of their intimate involvement in the life of the undergraduate College. Members of the committee and others pushed back hard at this eventuality, and President Kim does now attend these meetings — but a signal has been sent nonetheless.

I have long maintained that the litmus test for the Kim Presidency would be whether he is capable of identifying Carol Folt as in impediment to progress, or whether he accepts her plodding, her dissembling, and her there-is-no-problem-that-does-not-merit-a-committee reflexes as the manner in which the College should be run. To date, his attitude has been the latter, and this posture is the primary reason that his administration has the pungent smell of Jim Wright’s ineptitude about it.

Note: Don’t discount the importance of reporting relationships. For instance, President Kim was careful to point out that the College’s new Athletics Director would be reporting directly to him — a sign of the President’s emphasis on athletics. Kim said in a press conference that he was restoring a historical relationship that is consistent with other Ivy League institutions. Well, tradition cuts both ways, and while Jim Kim may have proudly restored a tradition in athletics, he has also ended a reporting relationship for Dartmouth’s Dean of the Faculty, arguably the most distinctive academic tradition at the Ivy League’s only College.

Earlier this year, this space sang the praises of barefoot running — actually running on Vibram FiveFingers, a kind of simple running slipper:

The core observation driving barefoot running is that we are not built to slam our heels down on the ground with massive force each time that we take a stride. This gesture — even when softened by fat-heeled running shoes — sends a debilitating shock though our bodies. Fortunately, the elaborate bone and muscle structure of our feet and legs is designed to absorb the impact of running in a flexible, spring-like manner, as long as our feet land in a balanced, weight-on-the-balls-of-the-feet-and-mid-arch fashion — which is virtually impossible in post-1970’s running shoes.

Last week the NYT reviewed the studies concerning the efficacy of modern running shoes, particularly the U.S. military’s efforts to study the beneficial effects, if any, of matching shoes to a runner’s particular foot shape:

… someone [in the military] thought to ask if the practice of assigning running shoes by foot shape actually worked. The approach was entrenched in the sports world and widely accepted. But did it actually reduce injuries? Military researchers checked the scientific literature and found that no studies had been completed that answered that question, so eventually they decided they would have to mount their own. They began fitting thousands of recruits in the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps with either the “right” shoes for their feet or stability shoes.

Over the course of three large studies, the most recent of which was published last month in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, the researchers found almost no correlation at all between wearing the proper running shoes and avoiding injury. Injury rates were high among all the runners, but they were highest among the soldiers who had received shoes designed specifically for their foot types. If anything, wearing the “right” shoes for their particular foot shape had increased trainees’ chances of being hurt.

Quite astounding, n’est-ce pas? An entire school of thought on how to fit running shoes based on no research at all. Kind of makes you wonder who else is selling us a bill of goods. If that it your thought, good for you. As a thoughtful friend recently wrote: “The older I get, the more I see Potemkin villages.”

Well, that was the College’s advertisement anyways, but the truth was that when we had assembled on the Green, the Fieldstock fireworks weren’t over Baker at all — they went up from near the Rugby Club clubhouse on Reservoir Road, about 1.3 miles away. Viewed from the Green, much of the display was hidden behind trees and Rollins Chapel.

I guess that Dartmouth College administrators can never, ever be too careful… though on July 4th in Upper Valley towns, fireworks are up close and personal, they way that they should be.

Without a doubt, the most prolific current Dartmouth professor is Economics Prof. Danny Blanchflower. After ending his term on England’s Monetary Policy Committee, where his contrarian views proved to be spot on, he has made his mark as a columnist in numerous English newspapers and magazines, and he recently began writing for Bloomberg. Danny’s most recent New Statesman column notes that current data point to a second dip in economic activity — and a resulting string of social ills.

As this space pointed out some time ago, non-faculty staffing at the College ballooned out of contol during the Wright years: +41.9% (over a thousand new non-faculty staffers) according to the ever-helpful Dartmouth Fact Book.

Since that time, some retrenchment has occurred, but these figures have not been updated since January of this year:

In light of the absence of detail concerning the College’s cost reduction efforts, it would be interesting to see how much progress the adminstration has made in returning to the staffing levels of the hoary old days of 1999 — when we all stood around in racoon coats and sang Men of Dartmouth. Ugh, no.

Note: I am not the only person wondering what all of these new pepople are doing in Hanover. Professor Douglas Irwin of the Economics department wrote in to The D to ask the same question. We are both still waiting for an answer. It has always been a source of amazement to me that The D never picked up on the stupendous staffing growth outlined above. Nor did the College or the SEIU union comment on it. This data should have obliged the Administration to take real action on overstaffing — rather than just nibbling around the edges of the problem.

With nary an announcement, Heather Kim, the Director of the College’s Office of Institutional Research (OIR), left the College last month for a position at the University of Wisconsin System in Madison. Three of the six positions in this office are now vacant. OIR is not an insignificant arm of the administration: it reports directly to the Provost, and it is responsible for the Dartmouth Fact Book and other useful compendia of information about the College.

Williams is now ranked first by Forbes among American schools. We recently had the wisdom to snag the Ephs’ Harry Sheehy as our new AD; less known, we could have hired Williams’ former President, Morton O. Schapiro who left Williamstown last year to become the President of Northwestern. He would have been a great fit here, too.

A Williams parent with links to Dartmouth comments:

Morty Schapiro was a very impressive and effective president at Williams — he set the standard. He was present and personable, engaged and available on campus. He quietly prided himself in knowing each Williams student by name and something about them, so that when you saw him walking across campus, he would greet you by name and might stop to briefly ask you about your sports team’s recent struggles or accomplishments or how your workload is coming in that particularly tough Economics class you are taking that semester.

The students, alums and faculty (so far as I could tell) loved and respected Morty. He is the best speaker I have ever heard in academia. He rarely talked for more than 5 or 10 minutes, even at major occasions, but you sat with your gaze riveted to the dais, lest you miss a word. He would say fresh, insightful things, appropriate to the occasion, laced with his characteristic understatement, humor and dry wit (much of it self-deprecating), and you found yourself ruminating on his remarks hours or days later. He rarely made himself or his role the focus of his remarks. He was comfortable in his own skin, and it put everyone else at ease and made you feel comfortable as well. In an elite, innately competitive environment like Williams, that is no small feat.

This parent understands that the quality of an institution’s President is arguably the essential contributor to its success.

Note: Morty Shapiro seems to have more than his share of wit. In his first speech at Northwestern, he said that a college president needs to have “the strength of an athlete, the wisdom of Solomon, the cunning of Machiavelli, the courage of a lion, and the stomach of a goat.”

I wrote a post with this headline when Tom Crady left the College, and I had the same sentiments when another individual of real character, Andy Harvard, similarly got the boot. While we did not always see eye to eye on issues, these men had an attribute that is all to rare today in Hanover: integrity. They told the truth, did not spin issues, and they could justify their position on any subject with evidence.

Now another honest person has been shown the door by the same connivers who have dominated the College’s administration for the past decade. Diana Pearson, Dartmouth’s Vice President for Communications, has been pushed aside after a little more than two years on the job in the same manner that her immediate predecessor Bill Walker was dismissed.

Her crime? As far as I can tell, she failed to successfully gloss over the increasingly evident lassitude and stagnation that mark the Kim administration — just as it did Jim Wright’s time in office. Both of these Presidents have asserted that the College is failing to communicate its greatness; more incisive observers understand that an institution coasting on its laurels cannot hide that fact (as Forbes magazine observed in 2008 when it ranked the College 127th and commented that “some schools—the University of Pennsylvania (61st), Georgetown (76th), Cornell (121st) and Dartmouth (127th)—may be living a bit off of their reputations” — though this year Forbes ranked us #30). There are just too many ways for alumni and others to look beyond the press releases put out by the College’s PR arm — as I wrote over five years ago. You can fool all of the people only some of the time.

Rather than bringing in strong administrators and getting to work himself on the College’s problems, once again Jim Kim is falling back on Wright adminstration reflexes: find a scapegoat and attempt to appear decisive. And so we lose another class act in Hanover.

Note: Honest people have a way of making their characters known. Each time that the College loses one, Dartmouth will find it more difficult to attract other people of similar merit. And our slide will continue.

Note: Diana Pearson’s exit, like that of Tom Crady, and the elevation of people like Carol Folt, Carrie Pelzel and David Spalding to positions of great authority at the College, lead this observer to question whether President Kim has a nose for quality in his subordinates — or whether he is swayed by courtiers who specialize in telling him what he wants to hear.

Addendum: It does not take an infra-red scope to see through the foliage when Senior Vice-President for Advancement Carrie Pelzel announced Diana’s departure: “personal and professional reasons”…. Really?

From: Kaitlyn J. Sheehan

Sent: Monday, August 09, 2010 2:08 PM
Subject: PAF Announcement

August 5, 2010

Dear Colleagues,

For personal and professional reasons, Diana Pearson has decided to return to New York in September. She joined Dartmouth as Vice President for Communications in March 2008 at the beginning of a presidential transition. Her considerable experience in media relations and new media has moved Dartmouth forward as she has led the enterprise in new directions.