<p>Corbett</p>
<p>“The alumni trustees like to speak about refocusing Dartmouth on undergraduate education. That’s a wonderful goal. But does it mean reducing the funding and emphasis on the graduate Arts and Sciences programs? The alumni trustees don’t seem to explicitly address this issue.”</p>
<p>Frankly nobody seems to explicitly address the issue. 
Funding – I do not think so. Emphasis – to the extent that emphasizing teaching in undergraduate hiring reduces the emphasis on the graduate Arts and Science programs. </p>
<p>“ I’m suggesting only that this may be an increasingly difficult task given D’s financial resources, which are significantly more limited than those of peer institutions – certainly more limited than HYP, and actually even more limited than AWS, given their narrower scopes. Therefore some trade-offs and tough decisions may be necessary. If so, there are likely to be disagreements – perhaps strong disagreements – about the appropriate directions to take.”</p>
<p>My view differs with yours here not about the trade offs, tough decisions, and resulting disagreements but about the role finances play as a primary driving force behind those trade offs, decisions and disagreements. For better of worse, I choose to accept Rodgers use of the word “huge” at face value.</p>
<p>“For example, suppose that everyone agrees to hire more professors. Now suppose there’s a choice between an outstanding researcher whose teaching is perhaps subpar, and an outstanding teacher whose research is perhaps subpar. </p>
<p>At HYP, it’s a non-issue – they hire the first guy. At AWS, it’s a non-issue – they hire the second guy. But at Dartmouth, the appropriate answer is not as clear.”</p>
<p>Here, I think you’ve found the crux of the “vision”, “mission” and “focus” issues. Thanks. While everyone would like professors who can do both, given this forced choice, I believe the perception is that Freedman and Wright would opt for the researcher while the petition candidates would opt for the teacher.</p>
<p>“I asked “Is graduate education part of Dartmouth’s core business?” For some reason, nobody wanted to answer that.”</p>
<p>I don’t know that I CAN answer that – but whatever the answer is, it would seem that perhaps Rodgers and Wright agree.</p>
<p>Trustee Rodgers: “What I’m saying is take the huge amount of money that an institution like Dartmouth has and focus it on your core business, which is undergraduate education, and make it really, really good. If you want to pinch pennies, pinch pennies somewhere else and not on the core business.”</p>
<p>He decided, “that I would pursue just one issue, and my one issue, the one substantive issue, is the quality of education at Dartmouth.”</p>
<p>“Dartmouth is the best undergraduate school in the world,” says Mr. Rodgers…”small classes taught by real professors, not graduate students,"</p>
<p>President Wright: ''I have regularly insisted that Dartmouth provides the strongest undergraduate education in the country. This is our legacy and this is our ambition – and this is our niche."</p>
<p>Is not Wright in speaking of Dartmouth’s “legacy”, “ambition”, and “niche” referencing in more flowery language what Rodgers calls “core business”. That’s how it comes across to me.</p>