It has been all inauguration, all the time at Dartmouth these past couple of days, as President Jim Yong Kim takes office on campus here.  One of the events hosted as part of the celebration was a panel on leadership featuring General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt '78, Brown University president Ruth Simmons, Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter, Dartmouth Trustee chair and Freddie Mac head Ed Haldeman '70, and global health pioneer Paul Farmer MD. The panel was moderated by Tuck School of Business Professor Sydney Finkelstein.  It runs about 90 minutes and is available here:

Enjoy!

An interesting video from the development office at Dartmouth:

Today I heard one of the very best valedictory addresses in fifteen years on the Dartmouth faculty.  From Geoffrey Kirsch, who was one of two students who graduated with a perfect 4.0:

And so it is easy enough to lament that such comfort and convenience have come at a price; that the wilderness is gone and with it the adventurous spirit of “old Dartmouth”; that the College is already built on the Hill, the voice in the desert already heard, the books already read; that we stand here today, “magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life,” crying out for nothing more than a job in this miserable economy.

I do not believe this. As long as economy and environment alike are ruined by myopia and greed, as long as hunger and disease plague the world, we languish in a winter as dark and iron and oppressive as the early months of 1771. Wherever we set our learning against ignorance and ideology, we as Dartmouth graduates stand on the edge of a wilderness every bit as tangled and trackless as that which Eleazar Wheelock traveled in 1770.

Read the whole thing.

The Washington Post reports today that many private colleges have admitted more applicants than usual this year:

After years of increasing selectivity driven by bumper crops of strong applicants, many private college officials are concerned that more students will turn to public universities, which are less expensive. As of today's deadline to notify most applicants, many schools have sent out more acceptance letters and e-mails, built bigger waiting lists and pumped more money into financial aid to lure students to their campuses.

The bottom line: It will be slightly easier to gain admission to some private colleges this year, officials said.

Dr. Jim Yong Kim will assume the presidency at Dartmouth on July 1, 2009.  This is a wonderful selection by the search committee and Board of Trustees.  For more about Dr. Kim, see this page announcing his selection.

The New York Times reports that Representative Kirsten Gillibrand will be appointed to fill the Senate seat from New York vacated by Hillary Clinton.  This process has been a sordid mess, with too much focus on Caroline Kennedy and too little discussion of other possible candidates.  But the result is a good one -- upstate New York ought to be represented in the Senate, and the voters will be able to decide if they want to keep Gillibrand in 2010.  And for folks at Dartmouth, it will be nice to have our first alumna in the Senate.  (Gillibrand was the first in the House as well).

Gillibrand is a centrist Democrat.  It is already clear that she will face a primary challenge:

On Friday afternoon, the Rockefeller Center convened a panel of faculty to discuss the outcomes, consequences, and next steps after the 2008 elections.  We tried something new: 10 faculty members speaking for about 5 minutes about their specific areas of expertise. I spoke about fiscal policy (at about one hour and 5 minutes into the video).  You can watch the YouTube video by following this link.

Classes resumed at Dartmouth this week.  I'm teaching two sections of Economics 36, a mid-level course designed to give students mastery of the basics of diversification, hedging, and corporate finance.  It's an interesting time to be immersed in that material.  The students were only mildly amused when I suggested that the higher demand for turnaround specialists might be enough to offset the lower demand for investment analysts.

Outside the classroom, the Rockefeller Center, where I am the director, has jumped into the term with some interesting public lectures.  Last evening, we had the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Montgomery McFate to speak about the "Human Terrain System" in Iraq and Afghanistan.  More students should see the value of careful social science research in challenging situations like counterinsurgency.  They shouldn't be (and weren't) shielded from a discussion of the ethical issues that arise in these situations.  You can read about her presentation here.

From our local paper, a nice article about Hank Paulson, Dartmouth Class of 1968, who may wish his job were as uncomplicated as his days of playing football in college:

Hanover -- More than 40 years ago, a rugged but undersized Hank Paulson regularly dominated bigger Ivy League opponents as an All-East offensive tackle on the Dartmouth College football team.

Today, Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson Jr., 62, is trying to open some daylight for the American economy, meeting with Capitol Hill leaders on Thursday night and standing by President Bush at the White House Friday to announce details of an unprecedented Wall Street bailout.

Former teammates and classmates of Paulson, who graduated from Dartmouth in 1968 as an English major, describe a man of great determination, always prepared, with a quiet manner and humor.

Enjoy!

Sweet!

Money(!) quote:

Top employers for Dartmouth's 2008 graduating class include Bain, Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, which are almost all high-paying posts. Yet two other big employers of recent grads fall on the other end of the pay scale: Teach for America and the Peace Corps. Both organizations are focused on helping the less fortunate and require two-year commitments. So how do Dartmouth grads, many starting at nonprofits, leapfrog their peers when it comes to compensation as they gain more experience?

"Dartmouth produces well-rounded people who can move into senior-level positions easily," says Monica Wilson, associate director of career services at the school. Another important factor in the success of Dartmouth grads is an extremely tight and loyal alumni network. Dartmouth is located in tiny Hanover, N.H., and is the smallest of the Ivy League schools with 4,100 undergrad students enrolled. Yet the alumni network is extremely impressive and stretches from Daniel Webster to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson during its 239 year history. Other prominent grads include General Electric head Jeffrey Immelt, eBay chief John Donahoe and former IBM boss Louis Gerstner. 

Let the record show that I arrived at Dartmouth 14 years ago this week and taught my first finance class to members of the class of 1995 shortly thereafter.  I'm surprised it had such an immediate impact on these statistics ...