Dear Dartmouth community,
I write to update you on Dartmouth’s feedback to the Administration on the recently proposed higher education compact. As I wrote to you two weeks ago, our actions will always be guided by our mission and values and a deep commitment to every member of this community.
Dartmouth has a celebrated history of forging its own path—Vox clamantis in deserto—and serving as a model for teaching and discovery in American higher education. As I shared on a call yesterday with the White House, I do not believe that a compact—with any administration—is the right approach to achieve academic excellence, as it would compromise our academic freedom, our ability to govern ourselves, and the principle that federal research funds should be awarded to the best, most promising ideas.
The partnership between America’s leading research universities and the federal government has been one of the most successful joint ventures in history. For this relationship to thrive, institutions of higher education need to do better at living up to our collective academic mission. We must also maintain the right to define our mission and values and how they are expressed and realized.
Below is the feedback I communicated to the Administration in the call and sent to them today. This feedback follows discussion with faculty leadership, the broader community, and the Board of Trustees at our meeting this weekend.
Sincerely,
Sian Leah Beilock
President
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Dear Secretary McMahon, Ms. Mailman, and Mr. Haley,
I appreciated the opportunity to speak with you yesterday.
I welcome further engagement around how we can (a) enhance the long-standing partnership between the federal government and this country’s leading research universities and (b) ensure that higher education stays focused on academic excellence. As I shared on the call, I do not believe that the involvement of the government through a compact—whether it is a Republican- or Democratic-led White House—is the right way to focus America’s leading colleges and universities on their teaching and research mission.
Our universities have a responsibility to set our own academic and institutional policies, guided by our mission and values, our commitment to free expression, and our obligations under the law. Staying true to this responsibility is what will help American higher education build bipartisan public trust and continue to uphold its place as the envy of the world.
We remain open to other ways to work with the federal government to enhance higher education.
Sincerely,
Sian Leah Beilock
President