Opinion piece by Provost Barry Scherr as submitted to The Dartmouth, Feb. 12, 2009. An edited version was published in the student paper Feb. 13, 2009.
The distorted and inaccurate view of Dartmouth portrayed by Joe Asch '79 does a disservice to Dartmouth. While he is entitled to his opinion (“Waste and More Waste,” published in The Dartmouth Feb. 10, 2009), his use of data is selective, misleading and often wrong. During the 10-year presidency of Jim Wright, Dartmouth has grown stronger than ever by adding faculty, building needed facilities, and expanding financial aid. The College's reasonable and necessary administrative growth has been appropriate to an institution of our excellence and aspirations.
As a result of the budget plan announced this week, we are well positioned to meet the challenges of the worldwide economic crisis. There are good reasons why the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton in 2004 named Dartmouth one of the world’s ten most enduring institutions that have “changed and grown in unswerving pursuit of success and relevance – yet remained true through time to its founding principles.”
Of course the administration has grown over the past decade. Our faculty, academic programs, facilities, student body, and alumni body have also grown – as have governmental regulatory and reporting requirements. The real question is: has the growth been appropriate and reasonable?
According to a 2006 study by the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~presoff/report/summary.html), the ratio of Dartmouth’s administrative staff to total students is in line with that of peer institutions. In a recent five-year period studied by McKinsey, faculty growth was almost triple that of administrative growth (3.0 percent v. 1.1 percent).
On our audited financial statements, administrative expenses are reported under the heading "Administrative Support." This is a broad category of activities, ranging from the President's office and the office of the General Counsel to the deans offices of the professional schools. The single largest component is computing services and network infrastructure. As one might imagine, computing and network expenses have increased substantially since 1998, and Dartmouth has invested heavily in these areas to meet the growing and changing needs of our faculty and students.
From 1998 to 2007, Administrative Support was less than 5 percent of the total budget and less than 10 percent of what we invested in Academic and Student Programs. In 2008, Administrative Support expenses increased to 6.5 percent of the total budget. The majority of last year's increase reflects a reclassification of some expenses (for example, campus-wide web publishing services), rather than simply a budget increase. None of these figures reflect financial aid, which for accounting purposes is considered a reduction in revenue, rather than an expense. (Source: Dartmouth Financial Statements, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~control/reporting/ppp.html.)
Mr. Asch is wrong when he implies that Dartmouth has not added professors. The Arts and Sciences faculty grew 15.5 percent, from 380 to 439 full-time equivalents, over the past decade. As a result the student-faculty ratio has improved from 10-1 to 8-1. During this time, we also have offered more classes with fewer than 20 students, going from 57 percent to 64 percent of our classes.
And Mr. Asch also is mistaken on course over-enrollment. Specific sections are intentionally limited in size to create a better learning experience. Almost all classes with multiple sections have space available each term, and students who do encounter a close-out have the option of taking the same course in a future term.
In fact, the College has been very pro-active in finding ways to help students take the courses they most want. For example, classes in two of our most popular departments, economics and government, have been added at a significantly faster pace than the increase in student enrollments. The number of economics courses grew 44 percent to 108 from 1997 through 2009, while enrollments grew 32 percent. In government, courses grew 28 percent to 95 during the same period, while enrollments fell slightly, by 3 percent.
Contrast Mr. Asch's assertions with what our own students report: 90 percent of seniors surveyed were satisfied with the availability of courses, 94 percent were satisfied with the size of classes, and 97 percent were satisfied with the overall quality of instruction. (Source: Dartmouth Senior Survey, Class of 2008, with 89 percent participation. Full results: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~oir/pdfs/DartmouthSeniorSurveyHistoricalTrends.pdf).
The Budget Reconciliation Plan announced this week will reduce the College-only budget by $47 million through 2011 yet protects all tenured and tenure-track faculty positions. As President Wright explained, the process was guided by the College’s commitment to protecting the excellence of Dartmouth’s academic programs and ensuring continued access for the best students regardless of their financial means. Those students are enthusiastic about coming to Dartmouth: Applications have increased to 18,093 (as of this week) from 10,143 in 1998 – a jump of over 78 percent. Dartmouth acts according to its priorities and mission, and our actions speak louder than Mr. Asch’s words.
