"Positive Impact"
... for the education & instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land ... and also of English Youth and any others ...
Statement of Purpose - Dartmouth Charter, 1769
. . . the fundamental purpose of DartmouthCollege is the education of men andwomen who have a high potential for makinga significant positive impact on society.In order that the College maintain its positionof leadership in higher education, it isessential to enroll the best qualifiedstudents to fulfill this purpose.
Trustee Statement, January 1976
With a 330-word statement (see below) adopted at its January meeting the Board of Trustees has, in effect, said it is prepared to remove sex as a criterion of admission to Dartmouth. The new policy comes after several months of discussion - and sometimes acrimonious debate - among students, faculty, and alumni over the proper "mix" of men and women in the undergraduate body.
How the policy will precisely affect admissions practices and the number of women and men at Dartmouth in the next few years is itself being debated. What is known for certain is that ratios or quotas based on sex will gradually disappear starting with the Class of 1981. The emphasis is on gradual. With the adoption of coeducation the male enrollment was set at about 3,000, a figure subject to review after four years. In this, the fourth full year of coeducation, Dartmouth's male-female ratio is roughly 3:1.
The Trustees said they intend to spend the next year working out specific admissions guidelines for the Class of 1981 and beyond.
What the statement does not mean is that Dartmouth has opted for "equal access" in admissions, a term usually taken to imply an equal number of male and female students. The key phrase in the Trustee statement is "potential for making a significant positive impact on society." Questions remaining to be resolved are how such potential will be measured - what weight will be given to academic and other credentials - and, indeed, whether in today's society the opportunities for "positive impact" are higher in one sex than another.
Clearly, the Trustees assumed that in the future women increasingly will occupy positions of importance in business, the arts, government, and the professions. However, if it is concluded that at the moment "leadership" positions in society are not readily available to large numbers of women, it seems conceivable that for the next few years the number of male and female students might stay approximately the same. The outcome, both immediate and long term, also obviously depends on the qualifications of the applicants. It comes down to this: if the pool of female (or male) applicants has relatively more individuals in it who have potential for "positive impact," their proportion would be higher under the new policy. If the pool of female (or male) applicants shows less potential, there could be relatively fewer women (or men) accepted.
The Trustees must also wrestle with such issues as whether "positive impact on society" includes contributions to undergraduate life at Dartmouth; if it does then athletic ability might well be regarded as an important qualification for admission. The question of how the new policy will affect minority students, children of Dartmouth parents, and geographical preferences also comes up. Are all admissions goals based on numbers or percentages to be eliminated?
The Trustees did not attempt to define admissions criteria for the future, nor did they determine the rate of change or make any reference about the overall size of the College. They allowed themselves one year, consulting with all segments of the Dartmouth community, to work out these nettlesome questions.
