Single Remaining Competent Administrator Departs Dartmouth

College Provost Joseph Helble has officially thrown in the towel. The Dartmouth Administration announced this morning that Helble will be leaving this August to serve as the 15th President of Lehigh University, his alma mater. 

During his sixteen years at Dartmouth, Helble served as Dean of the Thayer School of Engineering and as Professor of Chemical Engineering before being pulled into Parkhurst to become the College’s chief academic administrator. 

Helble can be credited for significant growth of the Thayer School during his tenure, having raised the school to prominence by doubling enrollment and becoming the first engineering program in the nation to graduate more women than men. This won him the position of College Provost in 2018, a job that he has conducted rather successfully, making Helble a welcome break from the typical Dartmouth brand of administrative incompetence.

During the pandemic, Helble has garnered a reputation among students for being the sole administrator whom they have few reasons to despise. His Community Conversations—broadcast weekly to Dartmouth students and parents—have been shockingly informative and surprisingly empathetic. This fact has distinguished Helble as a unique figure amongst the Dartmouth administration, especially as other prominent individuals (especially Kathryn Lively, Dean of the College) have bombarded students and parents with painfully tone-deaf, viciously accusatory, and generally quite ominous communications. As such, Helble has played a crucial role repairing bridges burned by his colleagues. As one exasperated parent remarked to The Review, “[Helble’s] emails are the only ones that don’t make me want to rescind [my daughter’s] tuition checks.”

Perhaps most importantly, Helble is believed to be the strongest advocate in the Administration for a return to in-person classes. With his departure this August, there is concern that the College will drag their feet all the more fervently in response to student pleas to reopen. 
In a statement to Dartmouth News, Helble remarked, “I have been at Dartmouth for 16 years and never thought I would leave. But to have the opportunity to return, as president, to my alma mater, to the university that changed my view of what’s possible in life … I can’t even begin to describe how special this is for me.” Though the College can scarcely afford to lose such a rarity as a competent administrator, The Review understands what a wonderful opportunity this is for Provost Helble and wishes him well. Our only hope is that similar opportunities open up for our other esteemed administrators—ideally opportunities far, far away from here.