Dartmouth College is held together by tradition, brick, and an eclectic population of people who are always pushing her forward into the present. President since June 10, 2013, Philip J. Hanlon has made his mark on this campus in the form of numerous initiatives. On September 10th, I sat down with a man who is known to most by what he has done at Dartmouth; however, my goal was to get to know the man who shook my hand when I matriculated to this school. Later that day he would shake many new hands, as the ‘22s officially matriculated.

Parkhurst is not a place that an undergraduate becomes familiar with during their time at the College. When I arrived at 9:00 AM, I was seated outside his office and able to chat for awhile with the two women working there before being escorted inside to speak with the President. During that time I read a few of the magazines on the table, poured myself a glass of water, and enjoyed the view out of one of the windows letting in the morning sun.

This is a man who was once a student, and is now an administrator. My goal for this discussion was to get to know the man I have seen walking his dog around Occom, at sporting events, and delivering speeches in the Hopkins Center. The following is a condensed version of what I discussed with President Hanlon:

 

You were a student and are now an administrator. How do those perspectives inform your decision-making?

I bring a lot of perspectives and experiences to the table. Those include not only being an undergraduate, but also having an academic career as a teacher and researcher, a parent of a daughter and sons, and an administrator at some of the most complex universities in the world. The advantage of having been a student here is that I understand the heart and soul of Dartmouth. There is a lot about institutions that change over time. As they should. The core of Dartmouth is a tight community, unwavering commitment to the Liberal Arts, a profound sense of place, an ethos of engagement, and an adventurous spirit.

Hanover is your base camp for the rest of the world. It is the place you start from, and go out from, and it is always here calling you back.

 

How is Dartmouth unique now, and how was it unique when you were a student?

The setting is still at the foothills of the White Mountains in the Upper Valley. I had more time to enjoy the outdoors when I was a student, and more physical capacity. I learned to cross country ski here. I also first took up jogging and running as a student at Dartmouth. And, I did a bunch of hiking.

I always felt rejuvenated or renewed by Dartmouth. The cold winter mornings were refreshing. It brings us together as a community. The weather is a shared challenge we all have. And there is nothing like being atop Mt. Moosilauke at dawn, or being down at the river at dusk.

Some of my most formative experiences while I was here as a student involve the outdoors. I went for a very ill-advised winter hike up Mt. Moosilauke as a junior. Myself and two friends were not dressed right, nor had we checked the weather. When we got to the last quarter mile past the trees there was a complete whiteout. We became separated and lost the trail.

For 10 minutes that felt like an hour, we were terrified and trying to find one another. Eventually, we did. It was a time where you realize there is no safety, and no one I can call to help me right now. I have got to figure this out.

More recently, Gail and I just went up Mt. Moosilauke to meet Trips on their way back. We do this every year. Trips really boosts the comfort of the incoming students because they have a small group that they know really well, and the confidence that this is a place that will welcome them. They can be successful here.

Was there any single mistake you made as an undergraduate that was especially meaningful?

Of course, I made a million mistakes. If I had a do over, I would study abroad. That is something that I did not do while I was here as a student. I studied abroad as a graduate student, but not as an undergraduate. I really wish I had. I think studying abroad is a great experience, and the more you get into the developing world, the better.

 

What was being a graduate student like?

One thing I did that was terrific was involve myself heavily in undergraduate research while I was studying at Dartmouth. By the time I had left, I had done enough research to end up writing three solo publications. One of them was a pretty large and ambitious piece of work. I could have gotten a PhD in three years if I had used that work as the basis for my thesis. 

However, when I went to graduate school, I decided I should use it as an opportunity to learn something completely new. I did my dissertation in a different subject area than the one I had written the paper. So I ended up taking four years for my PhD.

If you get into other subject areas with your PhD, the average completion time can be seven, nine or eleven years on one subject. You hear comments like: getting a PhD is 99% persistence.

It takes a long time and you have to love learning. You have to really love the subject you are in. it needs to be a subject that is a positive experience for you.

At Caltech, I remember a feeling similar to when I came to Dartmouth from a country high school. I felt like my peers at graduate school were from heavily technical schools like MIT and UChicago. I felt comparatively underprepared. It did not slow me down, but it was a feeling similar to how I felt when I arrived at Dartmouth.

I look back at Dartmouth and say those were four sensational years. I would not describe graduate school as fun. Not every moment at Dartmouth is comfortable and happy. But the totality of the experience was amazing. I would not say the totality of hte experience at Caltech was amazing. It was valuable. I got my PhD and my advisor was terrific. My fellow students were great.

 

Would I be able to understand an elevator pitch of your PhD.

No.

 

Why did you choose the subject area?

I chose it because I liked my advisor. I studied with Olga Taussky-Todd. Olga was one of the great woman in mathematics in the twentieth century. I was inspired by her, so I worked with her in algebraic number theory. She assigned me my dissertation topic: the connection between Quaternion representations of integers and the class fields of those same integers.

For the first fifteen years, most of my math research was very abstract. It was like art, deep and elegant.

 

That is a common statement about upper-level math. Could you elaborate on that?

The frontier of math is done and lived in an abstract world. You learn to think without holding on to concrete things. The beauty is that a structure emerges out of what appears to be chaos. You mentally build a structure or identify it.

 

Why did you start doing administrative work?

I got my PhD at Caltech in 1981. My first job was at MIT in the Applied Math department. I was there for two years. I then went back to Caltech as a Bantrell Fellow, which is a fancy fellowship. After one year back at Caltech, the University of Michigan recruited me into a tenured position. So I took that and went to the University of Michigan as an Associate Professor with tenure. The great thing about that is I did not have to sweat out the tenure process and tenure review. They actually hired me in with tenure. It was unusual. I was at Michigan for 27 years.

Michigan is a top ten math department. It is a great department.

The first fifteen years I was in a faculty position, and then the last twelve or so I started doing administrative work.

The way leadership in higher education works, it is all by opportunities that arise. There is no one path you follow to become a president or a provost. As a faculty member, either do or do not take one of those opportunities when it arises.

I had resisted being department chair at Michigan, or doing any kind of administrative work, because I knew that eventually I would. It started by my work on a search committee for a new dean for the arts and sciences. Then I was asked if I wanted to be an associate dean. I said that I thought it would be interesting to learn something new.

I said which associate dean. She said any of them, I am going to clean shop. I said I want to be associate dean for budget. I know a lot of people pay attention to money. I had never done budgeting before. I really love to learn things, and that was my first foray into administration. I did that for three and a half years. I was going to go back to the faculty, but the provost noticed my work and asked me to be the vice provost for running the budget for the whole university. I did that for seven years, during a period when the state of Michigan lost a million jobs and the University of Michigan’s state appropriation dropped by about a $177 million a year. It was a challenging time. Then the provost left, so I was invited to be the provost.

Then this job opened up after my first year as provost.

 

What is your proudest achievement as President of Dartmouth College?

When you are in a job like mine, you are doing it for the institution. Anything I take pride in is ways in which the institution has advanced. Dartmouth is a fabulous institution. Some of the ways in which we have recruited and retained great students and faculty are things I take a lot of pride in. We have done a lot of terrific things over the last three or four years.

Making the campus safer is another achievement that I am proud of. Students and faculty can focus and be successful with their academic work. I do not think we are done, but we have come a ways.

 

Is there anything in an interview that you have not been able to talk about that you would like to?

Gail and I are very active, as I said earlier. In our spare time we do a lot in the outdoors. We hike, kayak, play golf, ski, snowshoe, among other things. We spend a lot of time trying to get to student events and activities. We got to as many of the concerts, DSO, Wind Ensemble, Gospel Choir, all the theatre productions. We try to see every varsity team at least once a year. There is a Cross Country meet this coming Saturday. 

We love to see students doing their thing, because you guys are incredibly talented.

 

After the end of the interview, I was able to speak for a little bit with President Hanlon. We discussed my interests as a Philosophy major, and my perspective as a senior bearing down on his last year at a school he loves. It was a short discussion. There were many students waiting to shake his hand, so after we had stood up and shook hands ourselves, I left for breakfast at Lou’s.

– Joe Regan ’19, Executive Editor