Academic Affairs Committee

The Committee on Academic Affairs serves as a principal interface between the faculty and the Alumni Council of Dartmouth College such that: a strong, ongoing relationship is established, alumni are kept informed about the curriculum and other elements of the Dartmouth academic experience, a platform is created for alumni to communicate with the faculty, and ways are explored for the faculty to benefit from the background and experiences of alumni and for the alumni to access faculty scholarship and other academic resources of the College. The committee consists of a minimum of six members of the Alumni Council, the chair of the Faculty Committee on Policy, the chair of the Faculty Committee on Instruction, the faculty representative to the Alumni Council, a representative of the Provost's office, the Dean of Graduate Studies and a representative of the Dean of the Faculty.

Report from the 203rd Alumni Council, December 1-3, 2011

Committee chair Jay Miller ’82 opened the meeting and welcomed everybody.

Professor Andrew Samwick, director of the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, gave a presentation on “Leadership Development & the Curriculum.” Professor Samwick has been thinking for some time about how to integrate leadership development in a systemic way. He joined the Dartmouth faculty in 1994, and in 2003 took a year’s leave to join the Council of Economic Advisors (White House) as chief economist. With so many great minds working on the council, knowledge certainly wasn’t the “scarce commodity in the room”; the constraint was how to use the political process to improve the economic environment. This theme has informed his work since he returned to the Dartmouth faculty; not just regarding the dissemination of knowledge, but how to get things done in terms of turning knowledge into effective outcomes. Professor Samwick noted that the United States needs to mobilize university graduates, and Dartmouth is uniquely positioned to do this, as is reflected in its mission statement. He said that leadership is “the process of influencing and organizing a group to mobilize its resources toward accomplishing an identified goal.”

Professor Samwick hired Barbara Kellerman, a Harvard professor and author of Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence, to teach a public policy class on leadership learning. She stresses communications, negotiation, decision-making skills and managing and mobilizing change. He emphasized that there are four elements within the teaching process that help develop leaders:

• Rigorous environment in which to learn knowledge and skills;
• Consequential opportunities to apply knowledge;
• Critical and constructive feedback; and
• Time to reflect on lessons learned.

The Rockefeller Center supports the following programs in and out of the classroom:

• First-year fellows;
• Policy research shop;
• Vote Clamantis voter registration and turnout drive;
• Leadership Fellows;
• Minor in public policy leadership;
• Exposure to best writing and reading in theory and practice of leadership
• Three-course sequence with “Foundations of Leadership,” “Leadership  in Civil Society,” and “Leadership in Political Institutions”;
• A first-year writing seminar on foreign policy;
• Internships in Washington, DC; and
• Summer internship program matches students to alumni mentors.

The Policy Research Shop:

• Supports the legislative process in New Hampshire and Vermont with objective, non-partisan research;
• Fills in a gap in knowledge at the state level;
• Gives students an opportunity to distribute research to legislators and participate in testimony before legislative committees; and
• Tests the boundary of objective analysis. 

The Rockefeller Leadership Fellows:

• Is open to any seniors who have demonstrated leadership on campus (not just social sciences); and
• Emphasizes philanthropy, running and managing a meeting, negotiation.

All these programs operate on a small footprint, but the commitment is time-consuming and intense. Rockefeller recently received agiftto enhance its offerings to impact a greater number of students. Rockefeller hosted the October 11 GOP Presidential debate, which became a leadership opportunity for the large number of students who worked on it. The public policy minor has increased from 60 to 500 students, largely due to course offerings in leadership development. 

Professors Bruce Sacerdote ’90 and Tom Cormen gave a presentation on “Athletics and Technology in Pedagogy” to the committee. Professor Sacerdote said that students learn a lot from the athletic program: leadership, teamwork, value of hard work, time management. At the end of the day, these students keep their eye on the ball and will listen to authority figures and accept feedback. Athletes understand tradeoffs in life. Overall, they are raising the reputation of the institution, much as the Dartmouth Aires have done through the recent Sing-Off TV competition. It was noted that the coaches seem to like Athletic Director Harry Sheehy. Dartmouth is challenged because of the many intercollegiate sports we support. Athletes are totally integrated into the Dartmouth community, unlike some major public universities.

The committee meeting closed with a discussion about potential topics for the spring meeting.

Report from the 202nd Alumni Council, May 19–21, 2011

After a brief introduction by Hugh O’Reilly ’86 and introductions around the room, the Academic Affairs Committee heard from Cecelia Gaposchkin, PhD, assistant dean of Dartmouth’s faculty, and two students about academic student advising. Dean Gaposchkin told the committee that each student is assigned a faculty member during his or her freshman fall term to assist the student with course selections and the overall transition to college academics. However, she indicated that while the student-advisor matchings are made based on each student’s indicated interests, they still suffer from an inevitable “blind date” problem, and the relationships often do not develop very far. The students and other faculty members in attendance agreed with this assessment. Over time, most of these relationships are superseded by a more natural relationship with a faculty member more often affiliated with the student’s major. She also mentioned that each student was also assigned a dean, but that each dean was responsible for more than 800 students, making it difficult to develop any true bond between the student and the assigned dean. Dean Gaposchkin then fielded a host of questions from the committee members and a lively and refreshingly open and candid discussion ensued, with the dean frequently asking the students and other faculty members in attendance to weigh in.

The committee then heard from Inge-Lise Ameer, EdD, associate dean of student support services in the dean of the college division, where she oversees the undergraduate deans, the Office of Pluralism and Leadership, the Academic Skills Center, student accessibility services, career services, and premed advising. She is in the process of gathering information using student and faculty interviews and focus groups to develop a plan to simplify how these services are viewed by the students and how these services can be better utilized and coordinated. Again, Dean Ameer answered a number of very good questions from the committee with informative and candid answers.

Finally, the committee heard from Laura Braunstein, PhD, English language and literature librarian for the College, who talked about the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning and new teaching technology at Dartmouth. She demonstrated the “Blackboard” electronic learning management system, which was very interesting and well received by the committee.

As a final order of business, Patrick Martin ’73 was elected vice chair of the Academic Affairs Committee.

There being no there committee business, O’Reilly adjourned the meeting.

Report from the 201st Alumni Council, December 1-4, 2010: 

Following Dean Mastanduno’s presentation and the ensuing discussion, the committee heard from three members of the Class of 2011 about their senior research projects. Ilda Bajraktari ’11, with the support of biology professor Mary Lou Guerinot, presented her work on plant seed engineering. Anise Vance ’11, aided by geography professor Richard Wright, then spoke about his project exploring racial identity formation and segregation in Hartford, CT. Kathryn Mammell ’11, with the guidance of classics professor Jeremy Rutter, then gave the committee an update of her project on women and flowers as ancient artistic symbols. The students were quite impressive and all three presentations were greeted with active question-and-answer sessions with the committee. There were a number of questions about the impact of the student projects on students’ career goals and how they perceived their projects in the context of a liberal arts education. Each student was asked what she was planning on doing immediately after graduation and in the next five years.

It was then noted that the committee would host the following lectures at 4 pm in the Rockefeller Center:

• “Timely, Targeted, and Temporary: Three Years of Stimulus and Bailouts” by Andrew Samwick, the Sandra L. and Arthur L. Irving ’72a, P’10, Professor of Economics and director of the Nelson Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences, in Rockefeller 001;
• “Succession and Stability in North Korea” by Jennifer Lind, assistant professor of government, in Rockefeller 002; and
• “The Philosophy of Everything: Being Human in an Imperfect Universe” by Marcelo Gleiser, professor of physics and astronomy and the Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy, in Rockefeller 003. 

Report from the 200th Alumni Council, May 20-22, 2010: 

The Academic Affairs Committee received presentations and engaged in subsequent questions and answers around two distinct topics: the College’s ongoing reaccreditation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) and the effect of the past year’s budget reductions on Dartmouth’s faculty and on academic programs in general. 

Every ten years the College undergoes a process of reaccreditation by NEASC. Heather Kim, director of the College’s Office of Institutional Research, is spearheading the process in the current cycle, which began in 2009. Heather met with the committee to inform members about the process and to discuss its purpose. The principal basis for NEASC’s evaluation is an internal appraisal by the College of its own strengths and weaknesses (essentially a SWOT analysis) now being conducted by a team of dean-level officers. This internal appraisal will culminate in a report of approximately 100 pages covering eleven specified “standards,” consisting of a discussion of the College’s strengths and weaknesses relating to each of these standards and a “projection” of actions and investments needed to achieve its goals in those areas. While the reaccreditation process nominally has both a “public purpose” of quality assurance and a “private purpose” of quality improvement, in the College’s case (where successful reaccreditation is almost assured) the effort is undertaken principally because it provides a rubric for self assessment and, ideally, a catalyst for improvement. A preliminary draft of the College’s self-study report will be available to the public on the College’s Web site in August or September 2010, and the final assessment and recommendations by the NEASC team (led by Amherst College president Anthony Marx) is expected to be published in spring 2011. In the meantime, alumni who are interested can access both the College’s self-study report from the 1999-2000 reaccreditation cycle and the NEASC assessment from that cycle here: www.dartmouth.edu/~oir/reaccred/.

Professor of computer science and associate dean of the faculty David Kotz ’86 met with the committee to discuss the effects of the recent budget cuts on the faculty and the College’s academic programs in general. What began as a presentation on the topic by Professor Kotz evolved into a broader discussion regarding both budgetary issues and the general outlook of the faculty in the current environment, enhanced by the presence of four other Dartmouth faculty on the committee (Scot Drysdale, computer science; Peter Hackett ’75, theater; Brian Pogue, engineering; Lindsay Whaley, linguistics). As has been reported previously, tenure-track faculty were excluded from layoffs during the budget reconciliation efforts. However, as vacancies have occurred through normal turnover, in some cases they are being refilled more slowly than normal. With the total faculty having increased by approximately 60 positions (17 percent) during the past decade, neither Professor Kotz nor any of the other faculty members on the committee indicated that they felt this slowness to rehire was having any significant negative effect. The unfilled vacancies have also facilitated a suspension of approximately 40 courses during the upcoming academic year (or 2 percent of the approximately 2,000 courses typically offered); which of those courses are reinstituted later and which may be dropped permanently will be the subject of a future strategic review. Faculty salaries were frozen during the 2009-10 academic year (except for raises in conjunction with promotions) but the College has committed to a modest increase in faculty salaries for the upcoming academic year. By and large, other financial benefits that the faculty view as important to hiring and retention (such as a junior faculty sabbatical policy that is more liberal than most) have also been protected despite the College’s financial challenges. The overall objective has been to constrain costs while remaining competitive with peer institutions, particularly as the current environment has increased the poaching efforts by some institutions.

Hugh O’Reilly ’86 will chair the committee and Jay Miller ’82 will be vice chair in 2010-11.  

Report from the 199th Alumni Council, December 3–5, 2009: 

Interdisciplinary Studies

Following introductions, Bruce Duthu '80, chair of the Native American studies (NAS) major, spoke about NAS in the context of the interdisciplinary academic program at Dartmouth. As background, he noted that President Kemeny, in 1970, rededicated Dartmouth to its founding principles of educating Native peoples. In 1972, NAS was established. Not to be confused with the Native American program, which is run out of the Dean of the College area and focuses on support for Native students, NAS operates within the Dean of the Faculty area as an interdisciplinary academic program. Michael Dorris was its founding chair. Most of the faculty hold joint appointments in NAS and another academic discipline. Duthu, appointed in 2008, holds the first full appointment to NAS. The department has a full assistant professor as well. The principle behind the interdisciplinary approach is the creation of a structure that avoids isolation of an academic area. By linking it to other areas of study such as history, anthropology, and government, NAS becomes integrated into the core of the academic program. NAS has now matured to the extent that it no longer needs so many joint appointments. Its courses are popular and have vigorous enrollment. Some courses this fall were oversubscribed. On average, there are 25 majors and 6 minors; there are also several double majors. Duthu strongly believes in the value of interdisciplinary studies, and is proud Dartmouth takes seriously the idea that liberal arts means students have to be comfortable shifting in and out of different worlds.

Lindsay Whaley, associate dean of the faculty for international and interdisciplinary studies, stated that there are more than 10 interdisciplinary programs, including NAS, linguistics and cognitive studies, Jewish studies, women's studies, environmental studies, African and African-American studies, Asian studies, Latin American studies, international studies (a minor), and war and peace studies. New programs that may come online are digital arts and sustainability. Dartmouth is a leader in the field of interdisciplinary studies. NAS and African and African-American studies were among the first such programs in the world. We created the standard for other institutions. Some programs are structured like departments and others are spread out among several departments, depending on size and curriculum. On the positive side, these programs allow for innovation in the curriculum and help students navigate in multiple worlds. These are good skills for the workplace. There are challenges though, including the risk that the academic program becomes superficial. It also poses a difficult balancing act for faculty whose work cuts across two departments. Lately, the focus has turned from regional to theoretical, and Dartmouth needs to make sure that there is faculty expertise in regional studies.

Most of the academic programs are stable or have grown. The only exception is Jewish studies, which has not been as successful.

Although there is no formal interdisciplinary requirement, the vast majority of students samples one to three courses rather than choose a major from these programs. Double majors are also very common.

Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science 

Shreoshi Majumdar '10 and Peter Chen '10 joined the committee for a discussion about this publication, which is the leading undergraduate science journal in the country. It was established 12 years ago, supported by a faculty board. Open to all students of science, DUJS is a place for undergraduates to publish review articles or research papers. The staff of 40 students conducts rigorous editing for this high-quality journal. Some of the issues have themes, such as drug development, environmental science, evolution, and "visualizing the invisible." The publication schedule is year-round: fall, winter, and spring.

In addition to the print journal, there is a website for online science news, faculty interviews, events, seminars, lectures, and podcasts.

The print journal has domestic and international subscribers. The staff also holds events; during a recent event science writers were invited to talk about careers in science writing. The budget is $27,000 per year, but that budget is under stress.

DUJS has multiple generations of students and more articles per issue and more issues per year than any other institution. Undergraduates are actually doing the research and writing about it. Dartmouth is first and best in the nation!

 Ideas for the Spring Council Meeting

• Dartmouth's reaccreditation process
• Evidenced-based decision-making (how student and faculty performance is tracked)
• International programs (this was covered recently)
• Election of the committee vice chair from first-year councilors

Other suggestions are welcome.

Report from the 198th Alumni Council, May 14–16, 2009: 

Chair Greg Chittim ’01, ’03Th welcomed Lindsay Whaley, chair of the linguistics and cognitive science program and associate dean for interdisciplinary studies, who spoke to the committee about interdisciplinary teaching and the international studies minor. Professor Whaley was followed by Robert Resutek, an assistant professor at Tuck, who shared his experiences teaching the first undergraduate business course on accounting.

Greg then explained that committee members would soon receive a link to an online bibliography of reading lists recommended by the faculty who presented at the December Alumni Council meeting (Don Pease, Aine Donovan, and Chris Jernstedt). There was no further discussion on this topic. The committee then elected Hugh O’Reilly ’86 as the vice chair. The meeting closed with a gathering of ideas for future topics:

• Update on Native American studies by the current chair, Bruce Duthu ’80;
• What makes Dartmouth academics unique from other institutions;
• Information on the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL);
• Dartmouth’s re-accreditation;
• Academic integrity;
• The status of visiting, adjunct, and non-tenure track professors, including how many classes each group is teaching;
• Tenure process and the role of students and course evaluations;
• Ethnic and regional studies;
• Presentation by Mary Flanagan, professor of film and television studies and chair of digital humanities.

Report from the 197th Alumni Council, December 4–6, 2008: 

The meeting began with a presentation from Brian Pogue, director of graduate studies and professor at the Thayer School of Engineering. He reviewed the state of graduate studies at Dartmouth and offered comparisons to peer institutions. The committee posed a number of questions about:  

• the possibility of online programs at Dartmouth
• Pogue’s thoughts re: university vs. college
• the performance of PhD students compared to those at peer institutions
• the growth of graduate programs
• cooperation between career services offices at the College and professional schools/graduate programs

The committee also discussed the possibility of publishing book lists/recommended reading lists from faculty so that alumni could read these, but the committee did not come to a resolution. The primary topic of conversation shifted to alumni access to actual class materials. The MIT and other university open courseware seemed of interest, but the faculty in attendance indicated that it wouldn’t work well for many classes. The faculty also mentioned that it isn’t as simple as acquiring a reading list from syllabi, since much of this material is academic and journal-oriented. 

Roberta Moore mentioned ACE on Audio, which many councilors hadn’t heard about until we introduced it in Alumni College at Reunion lectures councilors attended earlier in the day. The committee members seemed excited and interested in ACE on Audio. It will be publicized more heavily.

Possible topics for the next meeting: faculty recruiting and the tenure process; outlook for academic programs – long-term academic planning review; and writing and rhetoric.