Fine-Tuning the Art and Science of Learning

With an eminent faculty of deeply committed scholars and teachers, Dartmouth has the desire, capacity, and commitment to be the exemplar for student learning and faculty access.

Consider

Being the Best at What We Already Are

Build on Dartmouth’s traditional teaching strength, commitment to personalized education, and its faculty’s passion for innovation and scholarship.

• Enhance the liberal arts experience with new opportunities for hands-on learning, adapting and strengthening the curriculum, revamping basic requirements as needed, and supporting technological and pedagogical innovation and assessment, and strategically grow the faculty and staff as needed.

• Support faculty experimentation to develop new courses, try new technologies and teaching methods, collaborate across disciplines, and work in rapidly changing fields.

The Wisdom of Mentors, the Power of Leverage

An intellectual community dedicated to access and collaboration can move the world.

• Strengthen programs for advising and mentoring to reflect a deepening commitment to personalized and hands-on learning, recognition of the complexity associated with studying abroad and taking terms to work off-campus, and the desire to better prepare students for graduate study and entering the rapidly evolving workplace.

• Look for new ways to involve staff, other students, and alumni in the mentoring of students and the development of new opportunities, initiatives, and programs.

Knowledge, Skills, and the New Meaning of Mastery

A deeper engagement in learning: taking learning beyond theory and extending the classroom.

• Require all undergraduates to engage in meaningful research, scholarship, and/or creative practice, and develop competencies-based objectives to complement curricular requirements.

• Reimagine graduate education to better prepare students for successful careers in emerging fields and in professions outside as well as inside established academic disciplines.

Educating Beyond the Degree

The opportunity to educate extends well beyond the degree. Advancing society through education and discovery, opening campus to the world and enriching intellectual lives of alumni across generations is the obligation of a great institution.

• Develop a strategy to increase the sharing of Dartmouth discoveries, campus events, courses, and other innovations with alumni, prospective students and faculty, and national and international audiences using new technologies, collaborations and communication tools.

• Grow outreach and translational programs that spread innovation and contribute positively to local, national and global communities.

• Invest in professional development of all faculty and staff, and promote health and well-being initiatives that lead to a high quality of life.

The Power of Scholarship

Investing in a scholarly community of the highest quality is the only way to ensure Dartmouth’s continuing excellence and place among leading institutions.

Consider

Building Capacity, Building Strength

Extend the impact and capacity of Dartmouth’s excellent faculty to lead change, transform fields, create and inspire, and provide solutions to major societal problems.

• Build critical mass strategically in areas of strength; support innovation and new developments in all disciplines and in emerging areas where Dartmouth has a significant competitive advantage; facilitate collaboration; experiment with research clusters in promising areas.

• Augment current graduate programs to reach critical mass as needed to improve their educational quality, impact, and reputation, and to increase faculty research productivity.

The Bandwidth of Research

Collaborative and computational networks and data resources widen and lengthen the reach of discovery.

• Build technological, computational and library infrastructure; foster a culture of technological experimentation; strengthen collaborations with other institutions to ensure state-of-the-art capabilities for research and teaching.

• Develop a comprehensive communication strategy to establish a more complete and prominent national and international presence.

Cultivating Dartmouth’s Leadership in Innovation

Creating pathways and capacity for innovation.

• Develop fast-track structures to enable flexible and rapid implementation of the most promising ideas and projects and disseminate successful innovations across the institution.

• Implement novel appointments, cluster hiring, and experimental programs to deepen the community-wide culture of exploration, intellectual risk-taking, and intellectual vibrancy.

Learners Without Borders

Making the world’s problems our problems has never been more important than it is today — and it will become even more so for the citizens of tomorrow.

Consider

Bringing Dartmouth to the World

A more visible global presence.

• Enhance global research, entrepreneurial, service, and educational initiatives.

• Promote faculty and staff international exchanges; leverage technology to communicate globally with international alumni and other regional partners.

• Create several global hubs/offices to stimulate new international collaborations and raise our visibility in key areas of the world.

Bringing the World to Dartmouth

Our strength is our diversity. Broadening the spectrum on a campus of people and ideas.

• Increase numbers of outstanding international faculty and students in all programs; develop new types of faculty appointments to attract global scholars and foster multi-institution collaborations that expand global reach.

• Grow opportunities for students to share their off campus experiences and integrate them into their on campus lives.

Global Citizens

Creating an environment where learning has no boundaries. Where the community is dedicated to learning and working across cultural and geographic lines.

• Ensure all students graduate with a deep understanding of the world via a curriculum supplemented by a broad range of global experiences; require students at all levels to have a significant global learning experience regardless of financial need.

• Promote greater engagement with international alumni, and develop a more globally-attuned workforce.

Full Immersion

Dartmouth integrates the intellectual vibrancy and opportunities of a great university with the mission and the soul of an exceptional liberal arts college.

Consider

An Outstanding Residential Experience

A learning, living environment. 24/7 access to ideas and people engaged with each other, learning together, having fun, and developing community and lifelong relationships.

• Create a more holistic and rich educational experience that integrates curricular and co-curricular opportunities and advising (academic and personal), enhances the residential experience, and brings life and learning together in and out of the classroom.

• Develop more contemporary housing options (interest clusters, residential colleges, on-campus apartments, graduate housing) to improve residential life and provide greater stability and continuity throughout the first 2 to 3 years.

Hands-On Learning

The depth of an education can be measured in both theory and practice.

• Expand support for students to conduct research, scholarship, creative practice, and entrepreneurial activities with faculty across schools and require all students to undertake independent/practice-based learning.

• Offer undergraduates more options to enroll in graduate courses and new combined undergraduate and master’s-level degree programs.

• Expand options for international and other off-campus experiences (courses, internships, service-learning and transfer terms) and require students in all schools to participate in significant international study/work.

Deepening Personal Growth and Development

Leaders emerge from a complete education that includes accrual of knowledge as well as critical competencies, ethical, and personal development, and multicultural understanding.

• Develop a culture of engagement, with many structured opportunities for civic involvement, leadership development, and ethical and personal reflection.

• Broaden awareness and understanding of multicultural perspectives through new curricular requirements, orientation programming, and campus-wide initiatives to promote reflection and engagement.

In the Diverse and Inclusive Company of Learners

The educational benefits of diversity — including development of critical and complex thinking, communication, collaboration, understanding of cultural norms, and interpersonal and social skills — will become even more important in the increasingly global and diverse 21st century.

• Grow the economic, social, and ethnic diversity of the community and support programs that strengthen the pipeline of prospective students.

• Cultivate opportunities and programs that promote a greater sense of responsibility for building and sustaining a safe, healthy, diverse and inclusive community.

• Remain ever-vigilant on issues of cost and affordability, and develop strategies to ameliorate negative effects of financial hardship on student life and academic success.