Frequently Asked Questions

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.

The Arts and Sciences, long the core of Dartmouth’s identity, has been operating on an antiquated framework —  antiquated because it had a disconnected leadership and budget model. Before this decision, there was no formal collaboration between A&S faculty and the Student Affairs staff, and the A&S budget was not under their control.

Now, 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.

The 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 the 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 the Arts and Sciences 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 the 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 of the new school (243 in favor, 63 opposed) on Oct. 30, 2024.

The new structure provides certain benefits that a collection of separate units, however closely linked, does not have. It will have an empowered leader and a unified leadership structure who will be laser-focused on the academic achievement, student success, and generation of knowledge at the heart of Dartmouth’s mission. 

Very few new positions are being created. 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. Ultimately, we expect fewer than 10 new FTEs.

There are no layoffs or other reductions in personnel anticipated as a result of this reorganization.

The Future of Arts and Sciences Project launched more than two years ago under President Phil Hanlon. It sought to understand the challenges of the current, antiquated administrative structure and identify a new path forward. The project’s goal was to propose a new structure that could 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 its aspirations. 

The need for this project has become more apparent over time, as various groups addressed challenges in institutional priority setting and budgeting under the current model. This culminated in a specific charge from President Hanlon to the dean of the faculty in January 2022, which was subsequently endorsed and expanded by President Beilock in fall 2023.

No. Dartmouth will not create additional schools for undergraduates. The new Arts and Sciences unit 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. 

The impact will not be immediate, and it will take time and continued community involvement to implement the new structure and to identify candidates for new leadership positions. President Beilock will seek feedback from faculty governance committees to identify candidates for an Interim Dean of Arts and Sciences, with the goal of having that interim leader in place no later than the spring of 2025. There will also be an Implementation Committee with appropriate faculty and staff representation.

We expect a search for a permanent dean to begin in the summer of 2025 and to have that leader in place by summer of 2026. Appointments of the interim deans of Undergraduate Education and Undergraduate Student Affairs would begin no later than Summer 2025. 

Budget and business-process planning has already begun and will continue throughout the interim dean’s tenure. Organizational transition planning for arts and sciences in the areas of student affairs, arts and sciences operations (finance, HR, IT, facilities), communications, and advancement would begin early in 2025 and continue throughout Academic Year 2026.

For more information, see the Timeline page.

We expect that students will not be affected by the creation of the school until the activities to further improve the undergraduate experience (for example, integrated approach to pre-major advising) begin in earnest. In the longer term, we anticipate benefits to student support through coordinated, holistic approach to advising, residential life (for example, further integration of living-learning opportunities and house communities with academic curriculum and advising focused on intellectual and emotional well-being), study abroad, better integration of the engineering curriculum, the closer connection with admissions, and more.

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 the 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.

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 the new school, Dartmouth College will remain “Dartmouth College.”

Undergraduates will continue to receive one the best and most distinctive educations available, capped off with a degree from Dartmouth College. The new school 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. 

Dartmouth is combining the intellectual, social/emotional, community-based, and professional development within one unit. This model will enhance 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.

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. The team 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.

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 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.

Dean Elizabeth F. Smith first worked with an Executive Committee in 2022 to identify the 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 accomodate 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 Working Groups page.

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 of Arts and Sciences 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, the new 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.

The 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.

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

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. There was no reason to change that terminology.

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 the new unit will be referred to as “a 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.

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.

The new dean will report directly to the Dartmouth president, with a dotted line to the provost, exactly as the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences does today.

Dartmouth carefully projects and monitors its revenue to manage expenses against its budget. Under the new model, the new school 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 the 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 the new 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 the new school and to other units engaged in undergraduate education, namely Thayer and central administration(notably, for Admissions and Athletics).

With this budget model, the new school has sufficient and reliable sources of funding to cover its expenses from the start, plus additional funds, and the school 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.

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 the new school in instances such as the selection of the Dean and in a review of the new structure and budget model after a few years.

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 Residential 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.

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, the 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.

The full proposal recommended by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences is available on this website under “Communications.” As this process moves forward, this website will be updated with new information and opportunities for members of our community to engage. If you have particular questions or ideas you want to share, please email artsci-future@dartmouth.edu or use the contact form.