Frequently Asked Questions
This page captures the Frequently Asked Questions during the implementation process; it is provided here as an archive for members of our community.
History & Implementation
Rationale for a New School
We are strengthening the unique dynamic among faculty, students, and staff by creating a School of Arts and Sciences that brings together the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Division of Student Affairs into one unit.
The fundamentals of a Dartmouth education remain the same. Our undergraduates will continue to receive the best and most distinctive education in the world, applying to and receiving a diploma from Dartmouth College. Our faculty will continue to be leaders in their fields, pursuing knowledge and embodying the teacher scholar model. Yet, by creating this unified structure at Dartmouth, we will enhance how faculty and students partner—both inside and outside the classroom—to have an impact across the world.
Through Dartmouth’s teacher-scholar model, the Arts and Sciences faculty have crafted a rich curriculum across the full breadth of the liberal arts, while leading their fields in the creation of new knowledge—often in partnership with graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, and with colleagues in the professional schools. And yet, it became increasingly clear to us that the Arts and Sciences, long the core of Dartmouth’s identity, had been operating on an antiquated framework that limited its development and the holistic student experience. Without the establishment of a new Arts and Sciences organizational and budgetary structure, Dartmouth would have no single structure that delivers the whole of the Arts and Sciences mission. This means that there would be no point of leadership to manage resources or to collaborate, coordinate, prioritize, and innovate in support of that mission and its students.
Now, with the creation of the new School of Arts and Sciences, Dartmouth will continue to chart its own path in higher education by strengthening our undying commitment to the fusion of liberal arts education with the benefits and breakthroughs that emerge from a world-class research university. Simply put: A move to a unified school allows us to enhance how we provide an exceptional, vibrant, and quintessential Dartmouth experience.
Our new structure will allow Dartmouth to meet the needs, ambitions, and expectations of some of the world’s most talented scholars and researchers, empowering and preparing students and faculty in the Arts and Sciences and across the institution to respond to the pressing challenges of our time. In short, the new structure will enable arts and sciences to better deliver its educational and research mission.
In our new Arts and Sciences structure:
- A unified leadership structure will focus solely on Arts and Sciences, enabling better informed decision making closer to day-to-day work of students and faculty and coordinated and holistic delivery of our mission. The President and the Provost will have a senior partner who will wake up every day thinking about the Arts and Sciences, students and faculty.
- Faculty and student affairs division will be integrated to allow more focused and coordinated support to undergraduate students.
- Arts and Sciences will have a larger platform and greater agency through dedicated teams in advancement, communications, and admissions.
- A new budget model will give our new school agency to pursue its goals and support its priorities while also increasing cross-campus funding transparency.
Many Dartmouth faculty and staff members contributed ideas and feedback throughout this process over two and half years. The formal committees of the Arts and Sciences faculty endorsed it, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted overwhelmingly in favor (243 in favor, 63 opposed) on Oct. 30, 2024.
The need for evaluating how Dartmouth delivers on its A&S mission became more apparent over time, as various groups raised challenges in A&S and institutional priority setting and budgeting under the original A&S model. These issues culminated in a specific charge from President Hanlon ’77 to Dean of Faculty Elizabeth Smith in January 2022 to propose a new structure for the Arts and Sciences. The goals of the new structure were to provide Arts and Sciences leadership with:
- Strategic control over the scholarly and educational mission of the Arts and Sciences;
- Increased budgetary and operational agency; and
- Expanded ability to pursue Arts and Sciences aspirations.
The charge and corresponding goals were subsequently endorsed and expanded by President Beilock in fall 2023, with Provost David Kotz ’86, Niehaus Family Professor in International Studies and Professor of Economics Nina Pavcnik taking the lead to finalize a proposal for a new Arts and Sciences organizational and budgetary structure.
The resulting proposal for a new Arts and Sciences organization embodies the collective aspirations of the Dartmouth community with input from more than 270 engagements, 500 faculty, 17 working groups and tasks groups, and endorsement from faculty governance groups. For the full list of groups and their membership, please visit the Committees page. Ultimately, the proposal reflects the vision of those who know Dartmouth best through their day-to-day engagement in its mission, and those who have worked tirelessly to bring to life a rational structure that will ensure a strong Arts and Sciences today and for generations to come.
Most peer institutions have a school of arts and sciences or an undergraduate college, a similar structure. Eleven out of 12 peers studied as part of the proposal for the Future of Arts and Sciences initiative have this structure in place. However, it is important to note that Dartmouth, like its peer institutions, has a unique context that should be considered. Peer institutions have a wide variety of organizations, structures, and budget models that have evolved in their particular contexts to support the arts and sciences, including undergraduate education, graduate education, scholarship, and creative endeavors.
Additionally, many of the nation’s most selective colleges and universities have gone to great lengths in recent years to rethink and enhance the arts and sciences experience. In so doing, they recognize the importance of the arts and sciences' undergraduate curriculum and those that support it in delivering a best-in-class liberal arts undergraduate experience and to broader teaching, research, and community missions across campus.
No. Dartmouth will not create additional schools for undergraduates. Our new school was created specifically to address the challenge presented by an outdated administrative and budgetary structure that was an obstacle to the realization of the highest aspirations of our students, faculty, and staff.
There is no current plan to name the school beyond calling it what it is: a School of Arts and Sciences. If there's a compelling reason to consider naming the new entity at some future date, that would be a matter for the Board of Trustees, who need to approve any proposal. Regardless of the name of our school, Dartmouth College will remain “Dartmouth College.”
The term “arts and sciences” is common in higher education. It has been in use at Dartmouth for decades to refer to the collection of academic programs and faculty in arts and humanities, interdisciplinary studies, sciences, and social sciences. These programs form the core of Dartmouth’s longstanding and renowned liberal arts educational model and curriculum.
The title “dean” is the same title we use for the other schools: dean of the engineering school, dean of the medical school, dean of the business school, dean of the graduate school. This is common in higher education and at Dartmouth. Because our new unit will be referred to as “School of Arts and Sciences”, the proper title for its leader is “the Dean of Arts and Sciences”. The historic title “Dean of the College” has only referred to a role that oversees undergraduate student affairs, and this new role encompasses much more.
Engagement with & Implications for Various Campus Communities
Dean Elizabeth F. Smith first worked with an Executive Committee in 2022 to identify our project’s Guiding Principles, and then established three working groups of faculty and staff to investigate faculty success, student success (focused on organizational structure and governance), and budget. The groups evaluated multiple organizational and budgetary models, identified potential options, and posed a series of questions to be addressed.
In July 2023, Provost Dave Kotz and Nina Pavcnik, Niehaus Family Professor in International Studies, began co-chairing a Steering Committee for the next phase of the project. They established seven task groups, composed of faculty and staff experts, who focused on specific questions exploring structural changes to the Arts and Sciences. These groups examined areas ranging from advising and student support to enrollment strategies and collaboration with central units such as Advancement and Communications. To inform their work, the groups consulted with standing committees and individual faculty and staff as necessary and appropriate.
In July 2024, five task groups were organized to bring further clarity and vision to future implementation efforts. These groups focused on questions related to an institutional registrar, undergraduate advising, business process continuity, the Guarini budget model, and Arts and Sciences administrative operations. They aimed to analyze the current state of Dartmouth and determine where potential revisions to structures or processes may be needed to accommodate a new organizational and budget model.
The work of these groups benefited from many thoughtful comments, questions, and suggestions from the campus community. An iterative process of consultations and feedback consisted of more than 270 large and small engagements with faculty committees, staff groups, and student leaders.
For more information, see the Committees page.
Thayer’s tenure-line faculty are members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, offer undergraduate courses, manage the AB and BE engineering curriculum, advise undergraduate students, and more. Thayer will continue to be an important partner to Arts and Sciences. The new Arts and Sciences organizational structure will incentivize and enhance collaboration and coordination between Arts and Sciences and Thayer.
Arts and Sciences and Thayer will be able to better collaborate on the curriculum; for example, A&S and Thayer collaborate to provide the best STEM education embedded in the liberal arts tradition. The reorganization will also enhance coordination on student support and advising for engineering students. In the new structure, the Dean of Undergraduate Education will be responsible for coordinating co-curricular student services with Thayer. In addition, our new structure will expand access to student services for 5th-year BE students. Finally, Arts and Sciences will have increased incentives to collaborate with Thayer on creation of new curricular or co-curricular programs, including graduate programs as well as undergraduate programs.
As implementation efforts continue, the interim Dean of Thayer will directly collaborate with A&S leadership while serving as a member on the A&S Implementation Committee. Thayer leadership will provide critical input as it relates to potential impacts to Thayer faculty and students. For more information on implementation efforts, please visit the Implementation page.
The project team met with student leaders across multiple years to discuss the proposal, and the Dartmouth Student Government (DSG) president and vice president also reviewed early drafts of the proposal and provided input through the Committee on Undergraduate Enrollment and Student Affairs in Winter and Spring 2024. We also met with DSG leadership in November 2024, and with the Student Liaison Council, which comprises the president and vice president of all the student governments on campus.
There were also many meetings with staff in Student Affairs, the Thayer School of Engineering, and the Guarini School of Graduate Studies, and several of those staff members served on working groups as experts on student affairs issues. The feedback and ideas received from these experienced professional staff, and from meetings with students and other community members, strengthened the proposal.
Undergraduates will continue to receive one of the best and most distinctive educations available, capped off with a degree from Dartmouth College. Dartmouth is further enhancing this education by combining the intellectual, social/emotional, community-based, and professional development within one unit. This model will elevate the student experience by encouraging collaboration across units that support the undergraduate mission, guide innovations and investments in that mission, and give Dartmouth greater flexibility to adapt to evolving student profiles and needs. As a result, we will improve our delivery of vital student services, including advising, career planning and workforce preparedness, by enhancing the connection between classroom learning, engagement in generation of knowledge with faculty, and other curricular-adjacent experiences.
For instance, currently, faculty advisors are part of one entity, the Dean of Faculty, while staff advisors, or undergraduate deans, are part of a separate Student Affairs unit. These entities will now be combined under a single unit with a leader dedicated solely to arts and sciences, strengthening coordination and paving the way for an improved approach to advising that better serves students. Students today also navigate a decentralized, confusing ecosystem of research opportunities. In the new structure, undergraduates can more easily immerse themselves in research teams and creative endeavors, alongside faculty, graduate students, and postdocs.
This will also strengthen our ability to educate and train future leaders through Dartmouth’s quintessential teacher scholar model — active learning and training that occurs in active engagement of students in faculty research and creative endeavors, outside of the classroom. The Arts and Sciences will be better positioned to invest in faculty research and recruitment of world class researchers, who in turn immerse students in the generation of knowledge. This will ensure that the students are prepared for a lifetime of asking questions, critical thinking, and responsible leadership, as world pressing issues evolve.
Staff, particularly staff in the current Division of Student Affairs, have been engaged throughout the process through various committees and town halls. Their feedback was helpful in shaping the proposal that created our new school and in planning for implementation. The project leadership and interim leadership will continue to engage those affected by the change throughout the transition process to ensure their questions are addressed and any concerns are heard and considered.
For additional information on staff involvement, please visit Committees page.
Our new organizational model brings together the staff from both Arts and Sciences, the Division of Student Affairs, as well as greater support from central areas including Advancement, Communications, Admissions, Facilities, and more in support of Arts and Sciences mission. For example, this integration will bring closer the two student advising structures of the College and will align and enhance administrative processes.
This process benefits staff as it now empowers the Dean of Arts and Sciences and their leadership team to advocate for the priorities of the whole Arts and Sciences, providing mission clarity for staff. This creates a clearer delineation of roles and responsibilities among units and establishes strong collaboration practices across units.
The current structure does not encourage or enable effective coordination in support of the mission. Where coordination is effective, it is largely due to the informal efforts of individual faculty and staff who build ad hoc relationships to bridge gaps. Those efforts, in turn, consume time and energy — faculty and staff talent and capacity that could be better used on scholarship, teaching, and student advising in a more focused and effective structure.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted overwhelmingly in favor of the proposal on October 30, 2024. At that meeting, many prominent members of the faculty, including several who had been closely involved through the faculty governance process, spoke firmly in favor of the proposal and of the process behind its development.
That vote was the culmination of an almost three-year process with more than 270 opportunities for engagement. Faculty served on 17 working groups and task groups; were engaged through their roles in the formal faculty of Arts and Sciences governance system — including the Committee on Organization and Policy, the Committee on Priorities, the Committee of Chairs, Divisional Councils, and through Faculty of Arts and Sciences meetings — and through the Dartmouth-wide Council on Institutional Priorities. Faculty also had numerous opportunities, in large and small groups, to attend informal lunches, town halls and department meetings, or to request individual meetings about the emerging proposal, to ask questions, and to provide feedback.
Faculty input and feedback continues to be a cornerstone in the reorganization and will be thoughtfully considered as efforts progress. For more on how faculty are and will be involved in the reorganization, please visit the Implementation page.
Leading our school, a Dean of Arts and Sciences will be solely responsible for the interests and priorities of the Arts and Sciences, including faculty priorities. They will be empowered to deliver on those priorities through new budget authority and infrastructure, in ways not possible today. In the new structure, the Dean will craft a unified Arts and Sciences strategy and holistically champion Arts and Sciences goals, inclusive of faculty priorities, to the President. As a result, our school creates a direct avenue for elevating faculty perspectives and ensuring their interests are met, whether related to teaching, scholarship and research, or other foci.
The Dean of the Faculty, who will be part of the new leadership structure, will have increased oversight on faculty-related matters, including but not limited to recruitment, compensation, professional development, and tenure and promotion of faculty. Today, the portfolio of the Dean of the Faculty is enormous. In the new organization, they will be able to focus more on the priorities of the faculty. In addition, the Dean of the Faculty will work in close collaboration with leadership on matters related to the coordination of faculty scholarship and teaching within the overall student experience. The goal is to provide a clearly defined and articulated reporting process that gives capacity to those who will be focusing on the success and development of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
In the new proposed structure, Dartmouth faculty will continue to create and govern the curriculum.
Project leaders met with the Alumni Council and held multiple open houses for its members. Individual meetings also took place with individuals who expressed particular concerns about the proposal. Alumni on the boards of advisors for Geisel, Guarini, Thayer, and the William Tucker Jewett Center also participated in the process and provided valuable feedback.
The existing faculty governance system, as documented in the OFASDC and the OGFDC, will continue unchanged unless and until the faculty vote to make changes. Some minor alterations will be necessary to adapt to the new organizational structure — such as the addition of a Dean of the Arts and Sciences — but these will occur through traditional faculty governance processes. The proposal also outlines specific roles for faculty governance in instances such as the selection of the Dean and in a review of the new structure and budget model after a few years.
Organizational and Budgetary Changes for Our New School
Few new positions are being created as a result of the reorganization. This is largely a merger of pre-existing divisions and functions under one unified structure. The goal is to improve student, faculty, and staff experience through better integration of these units, better focusing of each division on their core function, and improved collaboration between faculty and professional staff in support of our mission.
Dartmouth Athletics, led by the Director of Athletics and Recreation, will continue to report to the President. Athletics and Recreation serves the entire Dartmouth community. However, the school’s new Dean of Undergraduate Education will be responsible for coordinating with Athletics on undergraduate advising through Dartmouth Peak Performance and other co-curricular matters, in ways that is currently not possible.
Student Affairs staff will continue to oversee the administration of Greek organizations at Dartmouth. They are currently overseen by the office of Greek Life and Senior Societies (GLASS), which is in the Student Life unit of the Division of Student Affairs (DoSA). All DoSA offices will move to the School of Arts and Sciences, and GLASS will be in the Residential Life unit of the new Division of Undergraduate Student Affairs.
The Health and Wellness unit and the Community and Campus Life unit will continue to report to the President. The shifts of these structures from the Division of Student Affairs to Central in the summers of 2023 and 2024 were not connected to A&S project. These units serve broader communities at Dartmouth, in addition to undergraduate students, and require institution-wide integration and coordination.
There are no layoffs or other reductions in personnel anticipated as a result of this reorganization.
Dartmouth carefully projects and monitors its revenue to manage expenses against its budget. Under the new model, we will have greater agency to manage its revenues and expenses, and will be far less subject to the managerial discretion of central administrators. The leadership of our new school will be able to make better informed decisions, closer to the day-to-day operations of arts and sciences faculty, students, and staff, about how to use the revenue from its mission to achieve its educational and scholarly goals. They will also be able to grow revenue in non-incremental ways, which is not possible in the current model.
The new budget model transparently allocates appropriate revenues and expenses to our school, providing a reliable source of revenue. It also ensures that when these revenue sources grow, the unit’s budget grows automatically. This provides opportunities and incentives to expand or add new revenue streams to fund arts and sciences priorities and mission. The budget model includes a transparent framework for the flow of revenues to our school and to other units engaged in undergraduate education, namely Thayer and central administration (notably, for Admissions and Athletics).
With this budget model, our school has sufficient and reliable sources of funding to cover its expenses from the start, plus additional funds, and we will be set up to grow and benefit from revenue sources in ways that are not possible in the current budget model. The budget model also provides more resources to Arts and Sciences, especially at launch, while a revenue stabilization reserve will cover shortfalls in certain areas of budgeted revenue that can be affected by external factors.
The faculty Committee on Priorities and Committee on Organization and Policy were engaged repeatedly throughout the proposal process, and their questions and suggestions led to an iterative exchange through which the budget model in the proposal was improved and refined.
Implementation of New A&S School
Our new school officially launches on July 1, 2025! However, it will take until Fall 2026 to finalize all organizational and operational changes. The Implementation Committee – you can see its full membership here – is hard at work determining how to best structure operational and organizational changes to ensure a smooth process for faculty, staff, and students. The committee is considering the priority and order of changes in alignment with different units’ “busy periods” to avoid changes during the hardest times of the year. Specific implementation details and timeline are available on the Implementation Efforts page and are updated regularly.
Our new School of Arts and Sciences will be operating as of Fall 2025, following a positive vote from the Board of Trustees in late 2024. However, implementation is not a one-off task and will require thoughtful, robust planning and thorough, staggered changes that minimize impact and maintain smooth operations. As a result, some of these changes will require through Summer of 2026 to finalize. By Fall 2026, we expect to have fully transitioned all staff and operations.
In the future, Arts and Sciences will conduct a search, including launching a formal search committee, to select the permanent Dean of Undergraduate Education. In the meantime, in May 2025, Interim Dean of Arts and Sciences Nina Pavcnik announced the appointment of Scott Pauls as the Interim Dean of Undergraduate Education. His appointment was informed by the Interim DUE Selection Committee, which was charged with reviewing applications and recommending finalists for further consideration by the Interim Dean of A&S and other senior leaders (committee members are listed here). With a 25-year tenure at Dartmouth, Scott brings a wealth of experience as a professor of mathematics and the Cheheyl Professor and director of the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning. Scott will support the establishment and operations of the Division of Undergraduate Education through the appointment of the permanent Dean of Undergraduate Education.
In April 2025, Interim Dean Pavcnik announced the launch of a national search for a permanent Dean of Undergraduate Student Affairs. 2025 spring term efforts to prepare for the process and assemble a search committee have paved the way for the formal search throughout the summer and fall. During the search, Dean Pavcnik has named Anne Hudak as Interim Dean of Undergraduate Student Affairs. Anne brings a wealth of knowledge to this role from her tenure as Associate Dean of Student Support Services and as Co-interim Dean of the College, where she has demonstrated her steadfast commitment to Dartmouth.
Faculty will participate in the search process for the Dean of Arts and Sciences, as will representatives of staff, students, alumni, and central administration. Diverse committees of Dartmouth community members will also participate in the searches for other Arts and Sciences leadership positions. All of this is similar to how Dartmouth conducts leadership searches for Dartmouth’s other schools.
For more information on ongoing searches for Arts and Sciences leaders, please visit the Implementation Efforts page.