Presidential Search Committee Members Announced

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The committee members represent a range of experiences and perspectives.

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Parkhurst building at Dartmouth with people walking by
(Photo by Robert Gill)
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Dartmouth’s Presidential Search Committee will comprise 18 members drawn from faculty, staff, students, alumni, and trustees, committee chairs Susie Huang ’84 and Chris Lord ’86 announced today as the search for a successor to President Philip J. Hanlon ’77 gets underway.

“The members of the Presidential Search Committee bring a broad range of experiences and perspectives from across the Dartmouth community to this important search,” Huang says. “We truly appreciate their dedication and commitment to identifying the right leader to build on President Hanlon’s record of academic excellence, inclusion, and impact.”

For the first time ever in a Dartmouth presidential search, the committee will include a graduate student, reflecting the importance of Dartmouth’s graduate and professional schools to the institution’s mission.

President Hanlon announced last month that he plans to step down by June 2023 after what will have been a decade in the role. Huang and Lord, both Dartmouth trustees, held the first in a series of listening sessions on Feb. 10 with faculty, students, and staff to hear the considerations community members believe should inform the search for the 19th president in the Wheelock Succession.

The committee will hold its inaugural meeting shortly and plans to schedule additional listening sessions in the coming weeks. In addition, members of the community are invited to provide input by responding by March 18, 2022 to a survey on the presidential search. Information from these sessions and the survey will be used to inform the search process.

“We had highly constructive conversations earlier this month about the future of Dartmouth and the attributes and qualities members of our community would like to see in our next president. The committee looks forward to continuing these important discussions and to considering a diverse range of candidates to take Dartmouth forward,” says Lord.

Joining Huang and Lord on the committee are trustees Jeffrey Crowe ’78; Susan Finegan ’85; Gregg Lemkau ’91; Richard Lewis ’84; and Elizabeth Loughlin ’89. Board Chair Liz Lempres ’83, Thayer ’84, will serve as an ex-officio member.

Members from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences are Magdalena Bezanilla, the Ernest Everett Just 1907 Professor and a professor of biological sciences; Colin Calloway, the John Kimball 1943 Professor and a professor of history and Native American studies; Enrico Riley, the George Frederick Jewett Professor of Studio Art; and Zaneta Thayer, an associate professor of anthropology.

Members from the graduate and professional school faculty are Katharina Lewellen, a professor of business administration at the Tuck School of Business; Vikrant Vaze, the Stata Family Career Development Associate Professor of Engineering at Thayer School of Engineering; and Sandra Wong, the William N. and Bessie Allyn Professor of Surgery and chair of surgery at the Geisel School of Medicine.

Also on the committee are alumni representative Hilary Johnson ’15, a doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering at MIT; staff representative Lee Coffin, vice provost for enrollment and dean of admissions and financial aid; undergraduate representative Salvatore Lupo ’23; and graduate/professional school student representative Gabrielle Moss, a Thayer PhD student and Innovation Fellow.

The Board of Trustees has retained Spencer Stuart, a global executive search and leadership advisory firm, to assist the committee with the search. Comments and recommendations on the search and nominations for president are welcome at presidential.search@dartmouth.edu.