Dear colleagues,

As summer winds down, I’m struck by how quickly these months have passed. I have been glad to run into many of you on campus. It has been a pleasure to catch up in person, and I have been grateful to hear about research you presented at conferences, new grants you’ve won, and experiences you have had with students—including watching you launch sophomore summer leadership programming. All of your good work gave me lots to showcase for our alumni during summer reunions. Thank you.

I am writing today to share a few highlights of the work our colleagues have also been doing over the last few months to launch the School of Arts and Sciences, and how this is enhancing the student experience and our academic mission.

The school was created to facilitate new opportunities for collaboration and to allow us to take control of our destiny. To that end, our new leadership cabinet has been meeting weekly throughout the summer to address short-term needs, plan long-term goals, and begin collaboration among different A&S units and Dartmouth’s senior leadership.

“Collaboration” sounds like a buzzword, so I would like to share a couple of examples of what we were able to do by working together: 

These are challenging times for international students. But we were able to bring together colleagues from Student Affairs, A&S faculty, the Division of Undergraduate Education, and Admissions, in partnership with the Office of Visa and Immigration Services, to better support incoming international students who were planning for various contingencies in light of recent changes to the visa application process. 

A second example comes from the progress we made for transfer students. A chronic problem for admitted transfer students concerns knowing their entering student status. The cabinet’s combined expertise, along with partners in admissions, the registrar, and academic departments, helped us accurately and more promptly credit the past work of our large new cohort of transfer students so that they enter Dartmouth with more clarity about their status than has been possible in the past. While this is an ongoing effort, this is a very important opportunity, as the number of incoming transfers grew from eight undergraduates last year to 40 this fall.

We’ve also seen the promise of the school begin to bear fruit through the work of the dedicated A&S Advancement team, led by Kathryn Munro. Kathryn and her partners in central Advancement have been reaching out to the teams of the Dean of the Faculty, Dean of Undergraduate Education, and Dean of Undergraduate Student Affairs to learn about their work and, most importantly, their priorities for the future. That work will continue with outreach to other A&S units and faculty governance committees to understand their priorities as well. The Advancement team is planning fall seminars for members of the A&S community who want to learn more about their work and help us identify how to best support the A&S mission.

In further support of that mission, we will welcome the Society of Fellows into A&S this fall. This move will help us bridge the fellowship’s goal of bringing outstanding early-career scholars to campus with our goal of enhancing the academic vitality of our community. We will align the fellowship program with needs identified by our faculty members, departments, and programs—giving our departments a direct role in selecting the fellows. The new school is also helping to ensure, in collaboration with the Office of the Provost, that the revitalized spaces in the Hopkins Center for the Arts will enhance the academic mission of our departments and foster even deeper creative collaboration among students and faculty, particularly within music and theater.

These are uncertain times for higher education, but the opportunity of this new school is helping us to continue to progress on strengthening Arts and Sciences at Dartmouth. In addition to the changes above, our search for the inaugural Dean of Undergraduate Student Affairs is on course, nearing the first round of interviews with a strong pool of candidates. This fall, we begin important work on our first budget as a free-standing school. With the new school, we have the tools to shape our own future and talented colleagues to see it through.

You’ll begin to get invitations soon to a variety of fall events for our A&S community, including our recurring Wentworth Walk which will resume Tuesday, Sept. 9 at noon, departing from that building. All are invited. I look forward to seeing you at these events, running into you around campus, and meeting with those of you who are interested in attending the monthly office hours that I will be announcing shortly.

I am proud of what the school has achieved in a short period of time and am grateful for your collaboration. I wish all of you a productive Fall Term.

With best wishes,

Nina Pavcnik

Interim Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences