Dean Pelton Resigns

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells | Wednesday, January 14, 1998

Dean of the College M. Lee Pelton announced last Monday that he would be leaving Hanover at the beginning of June to become President of Willamette College in Salem, Oregon. Willamette is a small, liberal arts institution with an enrollment of 2,502 students and an acceptance rate of 87% and a six-year graduation rate of 75%.

Dartmouth College now has vacancies in most of its senior administrative offices. Committees are currently searching for a new College President, Dean of the College, Provost, and Dean of the Thayer School of Engineering. The Dartmouth-Hitchcock School of Medicine only found a new dean this fall.

Pelton's move seems rather curious. It comes during the critical hours of several projects Pelton has championed for the last eight years, and only two months after he explicitly denied having any plans to leave.

Pelton has repeatedly stressed his ideological opposition to the social primacy of Dartmouth's fraternity system, and the Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs' Alcohol Report, as well as the fate of Dartmouth's Greek Systems rest in his hands. Pelton has voiced fears about the future of the East Wheelock supercluster, for years his pet project, which he feels has not been given sufficient support.

Last winter, Pelton unveiled plans to revamp the College's Greek system, aiming specifically for a total of six fraternities, six sororities, and six coed houses. Since other administrators have not voiced their support of the plan, it's fate rests
squarely on his shoulders.

All three projects are deeply rooted in Pelton's desire for increased campus intellectualism, a hope enthusiastically shared with President Freedman. Pelton has strived to lessen the influence of both alcohol and the Greek System at Dartmouth — in his first year at Dartmouth he warned the freshman class that 'the night no longer belongs to Michelob.'

Along with CCAOD and the '6-6-6' plan, he also commissioned a committee to study social life on campus, with an emphasis on providing alternative activities for students.

At the heart of his plan to overhaul Dartmouth's fraternity-driven social life was Pelton's sponsorship of the East Wheelock supercluster, a prototype for a residential system where academics would seamlessly merge with residential life.

Pelton's grander scheme was to use the East Wheelock cluster as a model for other cluster conversions. He envisioned a campus fractured into dormitory cluster groups which would serve as academic and residential centers. Students would live within the clusters in successive years, and the dormitory groups would because mini-Colleges, similar to the systems in place at Harvard or Yale.

Had Pelton decided to stay even a year longer, he would have been ideally positioned to proscribe College policy in these areas. With his departure and the concurrent arrival of an entirely new senior administration, these projects are left entirely unresolved.

The new President will now have the power to radically alter the guiding vision of the administration. Pelton might have been a bulwark against any major changes.

Without an entrenched Dean or Provost, it seems likely that the College's new President, whoever he may be, will have the power and opportunity to hand-pick many of his top administrators. President Freedman has repeatedly referred to this opportunity as a drawing point for a prospective President.

Pelton's departure, curious because of its timing, is made doubly odd by his destination.

While Willamette College may be the 'oldest College in the West', it is not the best, and does not retain anything approaching the national intellectual prestige of Dartmouth. Pelton himself has admitted that he knew little about the College before it contacted him in August.

Willamette College admits nearly eight times as many students as it rejects.

It's student population is primarily composed of local student and is generally regarded as only the second-best small liberal arts college in the state of Oregon.

Its sole claim of prestige depends upon the fame of former Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield among its alumni.

The Dean of Dartmouth College is a vastly more prestigious position than those held by the academics who were listed as Pelton's co-finalists for the Presidency of Willamette.

According to the Oregon college, Robert Merritt, a Biology professor from Smith, Lawrence Cress, Willamette's own dean, and Robert Griffith, a History professor at American University in Washington, DC, made the short list along with Pelton.

None of the other candidates had Pelton's administrative experience, nor do any of them come from schools of comparable prestige.

The last top administrator to leave Dartmouth, former Provost Lee Bollinger, landed the Presidency of the University of Michigan. Had Pelton wanted to advance his career, he could have claimed a top job at a far more prestigious institution.

The destination and timing of Pelton's departure from the College make it seem a hurried decision. While the reasons behind Pelton's departure are unclear, the nature of his career move make it seem an odd decision.

Several critics have speculated that Pelton may have been forced out by the Board of Trustees, and the curious combination of factors surrounding Pelton's departure seem to bear out such a thesis.

Pelton's departure leaves open the senior ranks of the College administration. The incoming President, therefore, will have a rare oppurtunity to immediately shape the institution as he wishes, because he will have the primary say in appointing ost of the College's policy makers.

Obviously, the composition of the new administration will be of the utmost importance to the future of Dartmouth. While there has been some mention of a new permanent Dean of the College by July, it appears that the main focus for the Board of Trustees and its associated search committees will be on finding a new President. The searches for a new dean and provost will most likely be delayed until the new President is chosen.

Dean Pelton Resigns

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