With Dartmouth announcement, Princeton stands alone in Ivy presidential search

Princeton is now the only Ivy League school still searching for a new university president following Dartmouth’s announcement Thursday that Philip Hanlon, a top administrator at the University of Michigan, would be the school’s 18th president. Dartmouth’s announcement is just three weeks after Yale named its current provost, Peter Salovey, as its next leader.

Dartmouth has been searching for a new president since last May, when its president Jim Yong Kim was appointed World Bank president. Dartmouth Provost Carol Folt has been serving as interim president since that time and will return to her old position when Hanlon joins the Dartmouth administration on July 1 of next year.

Hanlon, Michigan’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, told The Dartmouth he “hope[s] to be at the helm for a good, long time.”

“There’s an exciting period ahead of us,” Hanlon said. “Hopefully, it will have profound changes for the better at the College. That takes time.”

Steve Mandel, chair of Dartmouth’s board of trustees, praised Hanlon in a statement sent to Darmouth's students, faculty and alumni.

“All of us are inspired by the exceptional qualities he will bring to the presidency as a world-class academic, an accomplished administrative leader and a passionate scholar-teacher,” he said. The trustees unanimously voted to appoint Hanlon to the presidency.

Hanlon is a 1977 alumnus of the math department at Dartmouth and is the 10th alumnus to be appointed president of the college. Also a first-year calculus professor during his time at Michigan, Hanlon said he hopes to continue teaching while serving as Dartmouth's president.

Now that Princeton is the only Ivy League school with a vacant presidency, eyes turn to the 17-member committee searching for a replacement for University President Shirley Tilghman. The search committee has just finished holding a series of focus groups and public forums with the Princeton community, staff, graduate and undergraduate students and is expected to make a recommendation to the University Board of Trustees in late March or early April.

Bruce Alton, a search consultant with AGB Search, the firm that helped choose Yale's retiring president 20 years ago, said it is unlikely either Dartmouth’s or Yale’s decisions will ultimately affect Princeton’s. He did remark, however, that the pool of potential candidates is not as limited as it was last month since potential candidates for Princeton’s presidency now won’t have to weigh offers from other Ivy League schools.

He also noted a trend in other Ivy decisions that he thought would continue with Princeton’s pick.

“Yale appointed a Yalie; Dartmouth appointed a Dartmouth grad. I think that might indicate something to you at Princeton,” he said. “There’s a wealth of talent within the faculty ... There is also a ton of Princetonians who are doing great things around the world.”