[ Silence ]
[ Applause ]
>> Thanks Carol.
On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I'm delighted to welcome you all
to celebrate this exciting moment in the Wheelock succession of Dartmouth presidents
and congratulate Phil Hanlon on his election as our next president.
Before I introduce Phil, I'd like to take a moment to thank you, Carol,
for your service to Dartmouth during this important transitional year.
I speak for all the Trustees, and I'm sure I echo the thoughts of the broader community
in noting how Dartmouth has continued to excel under your leadership.
We greatly appreciate your dedication to this institution
and its continued record of intellectual distinction.
[ Applause ]
I also want to express my gratitude to Bill Helman and Diana Taylor,
the Chair and Vice Chair of our Presidential Search Committee and our entire committee
of trustees, faculty, alumni and student.
They, and their fellow members of the committee, took on an immense responsibility
and worked tirelessly to shepherd the process to a very successful conclusion.
One of the great aspects of a presidential search, and we hope we don't do it
that often [laughter] is it's an occasion for trustees and faculty
to work together as true colleagues.
It's really probably the only opportunity where that takes place,
and that was a true pleasure and a rewarding experience.
And I think I speak for all involved, trustees, faculty,
alumni and student involved in that process.
Of course a great many members of the Dartmouth community engaged in the search process
by offering their visions for Dartmouth and the qualities required of its leader,
so my thanks go also to the community whose contribution was instrumental to the outcome.
When we began our presidential search last spring, we spent many weeks listening
to your feedback about what we should seek in Dartmouth's next president.
From this input we developed a presidential profile, which distilled everything we heard
into a specific set of experience and abilities we sought in the next leader of Dartmouth.
As you can imagine, it was a long list, encompassing everything from leadership
and commitment to Dartmouth's mission, to academic ambition and the heart of a teacher.
We wrote that these qualities represented the ideal but assumed
that no single candidate will have all the ideal qualifications, and then we met Phil,
a man who possesses all of the skills needed to lead us into the future
and reinforce Dartmouth's position at the forefront of higher education.
With a remarkable record of scholarship and research, combined with leadership expertise
and a profound commitment to teaching,
he is truly everything we were looking for in a new president.
As a Dartmouth alumnus from the almost great class
of '77 [laugher] Phil believes a liberal arts education is the firmest foundation
for forming citizen leaders with the creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, cultural awareness
and flexibility to make a difference in today's world.
Equally important, his 27 years at the University of Michigan,
one of the top research universities in the world give Phil a strong appreciation
for the critical role of outstanding scholarship and research and the vitality
of an educational institution, for faculty, for undergraduate an graduate students
and for the benefit of society at large.
As a world class mathematician, Phil's an outstanding scholar in his own right.
He's earned numerous academic honors and awards, including a Sloan Fellowship
and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and he's held visiting positions at some
of the most prestigious academic institutions in Europe
and in the U.S. He's also a seasoned academic administrative leader who served in a succession
of senior roles in Michigan for more than a decade, including his current role as Provost
and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, since 2010.
And in the tradition of John Kemeny, Dartmouth's 13th President,
Phil is a passionate scholar teacher who continues to teach undergraduates at Michigan.
In fact, he was teaching Calculus at 8:00 a.m. on the morning after we announced his election
and then came right up here to Hanover to meet with Carol, our deans and other campus leaders.
All of these important qualities and experiences are matched by Phil's personal integrity,
his strength of purpose and his deep love of Dartmouth.
Anyone who hears his story of coming to Dartmouth
and how it changed his life will understand the depth of his affection for this special place.
I could not be more pleased to welcome Phil back to his alma mater
and to welcome his wife, Gail Gentes.
I'll leave Phil to tell you how he met Gail, but she, too, has had a distinguished career
and is now the Director of Research and Faculty Support at the Ross School
of Business at the University of Michigan.
Together, Phil and Gail have raised three children, now adults.
They share a love of the arts, a love of the outdoors, and an enthusiasm for a variety
of college sports, and they'll be rooting for our basketball
and hockey teams this afternoon and this evening.
Phil will only be the 18th President to lead Dartmouth since our founding in 1769.
I look forward to seeing him help shape the place that played such a formative role
in his life, and with the support of the Dartmouth community,
lead us towards our 250th anniversary and even greater academic excellence.
It's now my great privilege to introduce Dartmouth's 18th President
in the Wheelock succession, Philip J. Hanlon.
Welcome home.
[ Applause ]
[ Silence ]