Senior Leadership Team Changes

To the Dartmouth community,
 
A new academic year is underway across the institution as first-year Geisel students settle in, Tuck students begin to arrive and FYSEP is in full swing. As we embrace the possibilities that the coming year provides, I'd like to announce important changes to my senior leadership team—a team that is incredibly committed to Dartmouth and brings a heightened spirit of collaboration to work across the institution.
 
First, please join me in congratulating Rick Mills, who will be leaving his role as executive vice president at the end of August to become president and CEO of the United Educators insurance company. Rick came to Dartmouth in 2013 as EVP to become our chief administrative, business, and operating officer and has skillfully supervised all aspects of the institution's financial, administrative, human resources, and campus service functions. Rick's love of Dartmouth was clear the moment I met him and I've benefited from his wise counsel and appreciated his warm welcome. United Educators is lucky to have him. 
 
Rick's responsibilities, which are critical to the success of Dartmouth, will be distributed across several senior leadership team members. Executive Vice President for Strategy and Special Counsel to the President Jomysha Delgado Stephen, who began her new role on Aug. 1, will oversee Human Resources; Safety and Security; Compliance; and Equal Opportunity, Accessibility, and Title IX, in addition to coordinating high-level strategic initiatives and supervising  the offices of the president and the board of trustees. Additionally, Josh Keniston has been promoted to senior vice president for capital planning and operations where he will lead a team overseeing our physical plant and its related operations, including a renewed focus on housing and child care. Josh and Chief Financial Officer Scott Frew will now report directly to me as members of the senior leadership team. 
 
Second, as many of you have heard me say, the health and well-being of our community is one of my top priorities. For many years, as institutions, we put physical and mental wellness to the side. At Dartmouth, we will bring it to the fore. With this in mind, we have begun a national search for an inaugural chief health and wellness officer. This role will report to me and serve on the senior leadership team as a key adviser on health and wellness matters affecting all of our students— undergraduate and graduate—as well as faculty and staff. Dartmouth Health Service, Student Wellness Center, and Employee Wellness will all fall under the chief health and wellness officer's purview. Mental health will be a critical component of the portfolio.
 
The historic investment made recently by Dartmouth's community has shown us that alumni service and philanthropy can help propel Dartmouth's institutional excellence to new heights. Two newly configured senior advancement roles, both reporting directly to me, will work in close partnership as members of the team to advance this mission-critical work. Bob Lasher '88 will serve in a key role as a strategic adviser to me as senior vice president for university advancement. He will focus on the development of Dartmouth-wide initiatives and continue to support my engagement with Dartmouth's community of alumni and parents, be the trustee liaison, help extend Dartmouth's global reach, and have oversight of Dartmouth's principal gifts program.  
 
A new advancement role—chief advancement officer—will lead the development and implementation of the advancement strategy, including Alumni Relations, Development, and Advancement services. I am grateful that Ann Root Keith, Advancement's chief operating officer and a 21-year veteran of Dartmouth's advancement program, will serve as interim chief advancement officer while we conduct a national search and envision how this area could support a new configuration of Arts and Sciences. 
 
Strategic communication is a vital function in every organization. Leading this work since 2015 at Dartmouth has been Justin Anderson, whom I have promoted to senior vice president for communications, expanding his role, and the work of the Office of Communications, to support a more comprehensive communications strategy across the institution. We have a tremendous opportunity to articulate a vision for Dartmouth's future that tells a wider institutional story, reflecting our distinctive strengths.
 
Finally, as we continue to explore how best to center the arts and sciences across campus, and as legal and demographic changes dramatically redefine university admissions, it is essential that we think strategically about the makeup of incoming classes of students and the resources we have in place to support them. I am promoting Lee Coffin to vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid. In addition to his current responsibilities focused on undergraduate admissions, Lee will partner with our graduate and professional schools to help develop enrollment strategies that enable Dartmouth to reach the best and brightest students across the globe. All of these new roles are effective Sept. 1.
 
One of the hallmarks of an outstanding team is when individual members feel confident bringing creative ideas forward for the group to debate, refine, and implement. The best ideas are produced with different perspectives at the table and when people trust they can speak openly and honestly. That is what I enjoy most about leadership and that is what this group, and the entire team, is capable of doing. Together, we are poised to make tremendous progress for Dartmouth.
 
Sincerely,

Sian Leah Beilock
President