Dr. Kim to bail out...

DartAlum
Sat, 24 Mar 2012 07:52:42 +0000

Coureur, Kim actually enjoyed consistent support from greek alumni. He was a pragmatic consensus builder who wanted to reform without eliminating the social scene at Dartmouth. See Bloomberg piece from 2010.

[Kim Rekindles Dartmouth Alumni Amid Austerity Protest - Bloomberg](Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)

Kim was truly undermined by the fiscal reforms that were required of him. He alienated the administrative staff and the academic staff with the budget cuts at a time when he needed their support to achieve his goals for the college. He was put in a very difficult position from the outset. Dartmouth would have been better served by having Jim Wright make those cuts before he left so that Kim could come in without that baggage. If he had stayed in the job for longer, he might have been able to overcome the initial bumps and had success at Dartmouth.

In general, students feel betrayed by him because he has been an absentee president in the current school year and then he leaves after only three years, less time than it would take to graduate from Dartmouth. In my era, James Freedman and Jim Wright had a campus presence. Even if you did not care for their policies, they were accessible to students and provided a steady hand in crisis. Perhaps because of the vetting involved in this nomination, Kim has been largely absent from campus issues including the student’s dissatisfaction with dining options, the murder of Crispin Scott while on FSP in Spain and the hazing scandal.

In time, the anger towards Kim will soften. He genuinely wanted the best for Dartmouth but was not around long enough to see his efforts through to the end.