‘I wouldn’t distinguish Greek life from the rest of the student organizations’

The Moving Dartmouth Forward initiative has defined Phil Hanlon’s tenure as Dartmouth president – his attempts to reform the school have been the subject of numerous interviews and much debate.

But when we met Hanlon this week, The Tab wanted to get to know him on a personal level.

We sat down with President Hanlon during his office hours to ask him some of the questions that students haven’t had the chance to ask.

President Hanlon isn’t a regular Tab reader yet, but he welcomed our conversation with open arms.

To start off, what’s it like living in the President’s house?

The President’s house is a great house.  It’s a great location, very central, I like being right in the middle of all the students. It’s very comfortable, you know we use it a lot for hosting.

What’s the best part about being President?

You know I think the best part is that Dartmouth did so much for me, it changed my life completely and opened my eyes to the world.  Dartmouth expanded my mind and really set me up for the rest of the world.  The very best part of this job is being able to give back to an institution that did so much for me.

Is there anything about your job that’s particularly challenging?

You know it’s a very complex job. I think what any college President would say is that there are so many constituents involved.

I think it was Forbes magazine that ran a story a few years ago asking “What’s the hardest CEO job in the world?” Their conclusion was that it was being a college president, and the reason is because of the multiple constituents.

There are students, staff, faculty, alumni, parents and all of the external stakeholders that have a stake in higher education.  They all have very different views on things so balancing all of those different perspectives is probably the hardest part of this job.

There’s been some push back after the decision to end need-blind admission and financial aid for international students.  What do you think about that? Are there different interest groups coming into conflict there?

Yeah. The one thing I should say about these different interest groups is that it’s really valuable for me to hear from them. I do listen to them and take very seriously what they say and what arguments they make.  I consider those very carefully.

At the end of the day, I think that my team and I need to make decisions that are in the best interest of Dartmouth College.  What I can assure you is that we will listen to what you have to say and consider it.  But the multiple constituents means that when we make the decision we are not going to please everybody.

Financial aid is one of the highest priorities of the college.  We want to make sure we meet the full need of every student who was accepted here.  If you look at the financial aid budget, it’s risen from 11 million twenty five years ago, to 89 million this year, which is a compound annual growth rate of 8.6 percent.  If you think of anything growing at an average of 8.6 percent per year, that’s really fast growth! It’s been the fastest growing expenditure category in the Dartmouth budget for the last 25 years.  That’s good, that’s absolutely what we want.

With this new move and the changes in the financial aid costs, there are a few important things to note here.  One is that the financial aid budget has not decreased at all as a result from the change.  Also, we will continue to meet the full need of all international students we have accepted.

As for why we made the change, there are multiple reasons.  One is that simply we were feeling a great need to have more financial aid for domestic students, particularly those in the middle-income range.  It has become very hard for those students and their families, so we made a tough decision to reallocate the financial aid budget.

What would you say are best and worst parts about Greek Life in terms of how it affects our community?

I wouldn’t distinguish Greek Life from the rest of the student organizations generally.  I know that students gain value from being a part of organizations, they learn skills of leadership, organization, and of course they make great friends.

So those are all real positives, having said that, we do need to have very clear guidelines of what kinds of behavior we expect from all our student organizations and make sure those expectations are met.

How would you say the Greek system has changed over time since you were here?

I’m really not close enough to it now to really be able to say.

What are your thoughts on how the Greek system has been disciplined?

We have a judicial system which involves students, faculty and staff.  I think it works really well.  We work very hard to do our best in making sound decisions.

In many cases, they are based on what has happened in the past to determine the level of sanctions.  I think it’s a very sound process and I support the decisions that have come out of it.

What are your thoughts on the de-recognition of Alpha Delta Fraternity?

I don’t really have any comment on that.

Can you talk about what the Greek houses were like in your day?

Yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna go there haha.

What’s your role in keeping track of what the Greek houses are up to and how they are disciplined?  

One thing you have to remember about Dartmouth is that its a very big complicated organization.  I have a terrific senior team and each of them have responsibilities in different parts of the organization.

One thing that’s important is that I don’t overstep my role and dive down into their business.  They’re incredibly talented individuals and they do their jobs very well.

My role is to look at the overall expectations for the institution and determine whether they are being met.  If they’re not, I get together with the team and say, “ok what we are going to do about it?”

Many people on campus are big fans of the mustache. How long has it been around and is there anything you can tell us about the stache?

Haha, It’s been around forever. I think ever since college or sometime around then.

I’m fine letting people make up their own minds about it.