Dartmouth, guided by its educational mission and commitment to respectful dialogue, is positioned to be a national model for how colleges and universities can navigate these difficult times, President Sian Leah Beilock told more than 700 community members in a virtual event for alumni and families this past Friday.
Speaking near the close of a year filled with unprecedented challenges, President Beilock reaffirmed Dartmouth’s commitment to safeguarding academic independence and encouraging a diversity of viewpoints on campus. These two strengths advance learning and inform research excellence, she said.
Values, leadership, and dialogue
“Our goal is to find the broadest swath of students who are excelling, wherever they are across this country and in the world, bring them to Dartmouth, and teach them how to think, not what to think, which is really important. And that goes to the heart of who we are,” Beilock said. “I’m excited about where we are with all the challenges. I think Dartmouth has a real opportunity to move to the front. We’re modeling what it looks like to have robust conversations and debate, to send the next generation of leaders into the world, and to run the kind of research that really is going to have such an important impact on our country.”
Asked why Dartmouth rejected the White House’s proposed compact with leading universities—which, among its multiple provisos, would impose a cap on international students, require standardized testing for admissions, and place limits on expression—Beilock said she was steadfastly opposed to members of any political party attempting to dictate how colleges and universities should operate.
Beilock noted that public trust in higher education has been on a downward trend for several years, predating the Trump Administration. Among the many ways universities may want to respond to this, she said Dartmouth and other institutions of higher education should refrain from taking institutional positions on contentious issues beyond their educational mission while ensuring students, faculty, and staff can respectfully debate and speak out on them.
“Protest is alive and well on this campus. I often have protests outside my office. But we can also be clear that protest doesn’t mean robbing other people of free expression. It doesn't mean taking over campus. It means abiding by rules so your fellow students can feel included on this campus,” Beilock said. She cited on-campus survey results demonstrating that a large majority of current students welcome the Dartmouth Dialogues initiative, which prepares students to engage in challenging discussions—and two-thirds of first-year undergraduates stated that they chose Dartmouth over other institutions in part because of the College’s commitment to respectful, vigorous dialogue.
Research, innovation, and AI
As for reductions in research funding, another sore point between universities and the federal government, Beilock said Dartmouth had lost about $5 million in federal research funding during the past year, much less than many peer institutions, and total research dollars increased by four percent. She noted that Dartmouth recently received multiple large-scale grants, including nearly $28 million toward a Dartmouth-led NASA mission to study energy circulation in Earth’s magnetosphere.
Provost Santiago Schnell said the heated discussions over federal research funding are linked to public perceptions of higher education.
“One of the biggest successes of the American experiment is the partnership between the federal government and higher education. The prosperity that we have in the United States and the prosperity that we have exported around the world is a result of that great experiment,” Schnell said. By becoming siloed in too many instances and not reflecting the broader population, universities have lost much of the public support they once enjoyed. Dartmouth can be a leader in rebuilding trust, he said, as it is an institution that provides students with an outstanding education and meaningful research experiences while also developing the liberal arts skills to effectively communicate the importance of their work.
Asked about the impact of artificial intelligence on higher education, Schnell said he shares many of the concerns about the potential negative effects of AI. At the same time, however, AI has the power to accelerate research many times over, sometimes producing analyses in minutes that would otherwise require months or years, he said.
“I feel incredibly lucky that we have the opportunity to create a faculty leadership group that is thinking strategically about when it’s appropriate to use AI in the classroom and for education and what is not appropriate,” he said.
Beilock added that Dartmouth recently entered into an agreement with Anthropic to expand student, faculty, and staff access to an exceptionally powerful AI model, and Dartmouth will help Anthropic define the role of AI in teaching and research.
Student life, wellness, and community
Josh Keniston, senior vice president for operations, provided an update on the construction and renovation of student housing, a top priority for the institution. He emphasized that Dartmouth is taking a holistic view toward housing by carefully considering how residence halls can foster a stronger campus community, which in turn improves student health and wellness.
Focusing particularly on West Wheelock Street, Keniston said Russo Hall, funded by Gina Russo ’77 and Tom Russo ’77, is on track to open in fall 2026. Three other new buildings on West Wheelock—the Class of 1989 Hall, Shonda Rhimes Hall, and Alumnae Hall—will open to students in 2028.
Jennifer Rosales, senior vice president for community and campus life and chief student affairs officer, expanded on Dartmouth’s achievement to safeguard students’ health and wellness. She noted that The Princeton Review recently cited Dartmouth as one of 30 colleges and universities, out of 540, that “have shown a strong commitment to their student's mental health and wellbeing.”
Looking ahead to 2026, Rosales said Dartmouth will roll out more initiatives to strengthen wellness, such as Arts and Nature Rx, a program developed to support students’ mental health and wellness by connecting them to arts, culture, and nature experiences.
Beilock added that surveys have shown a large increase in the percentage of students who feel Dartmouth prioritizes their health and wellness and a decrease in depression and anxiety. Those shifts reflect the success of expanding the availability of counseling, providing mindfulness activities, creating the position of chief health and wellness officer to coordinate outreach activities, and other initiatives.
“There’s no question that our students put a lot of pressure on themselves in everything they do, whether it’s performance, athletics, Greek life, or in the classroom, and I want to make sure they have the tools to perform at their potential,” Beilock said. “The goal is to give young people the tools to go out and be successful.”
The event concluded with Beilock summarizing what she is most looking forward to in 2026: connecting with members of the Dartmouth community.
“We produce good humans here at Dartmouth,” she said. “And I think we can really model how to come together across difference, listen, and learn.”