James Wright (historian)
| James Edward Wright | |
|---|---|
| 16th President of Dartmouth College |
|
|
In office August 1, 1998 – July 1, 2009 |
|
| Preceded by | James Oliver Freedman |
| Succeeded by | Jim Yong Kim |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
August 16, 1939 Madison, Wisconsin |
| Residence | Hanover, New Hampshire |
| Alma mater |
Wisconsin State University University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| Website | http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jameswright/ |
James Wright is President Emeritus and Eleazar Wheelock Professor of History Emeritus at Dartmouth College. The 16th President in the Wheelock Succession, he served as Dartmouth president from 1998 until 2009. He joined the Dartmouth History Department in 1969 and served as Dean of Faculty from 1989–97 and as Provost from 1997-98. Wright received a bachelor's degree from Wisconsin State University-Platteville and a masters and doctoral degree in history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
James Wright grew up in Galena, Illinois, a small Midwestern town in the 1950s, the son of a World War II veteran. He enlisted in the Marines in 1957, at age 17. Three years later upon his discharge he went to college. He worked as a laborer in a cheese plant and as a janitor, bartender, and night watchman in order to pay for his education. He also worked at the local zinc mines, including working as a powderman, setting dynamite charges. Encouraged by his undergraduate faculty mentors and enabled by the Danforth Fellowship, he went on to graduate school and became an academic.
As president, Wright’s priorities included advancing the academic strength of the institution and expanding the faculty, enhancing the out-of-the-classroom experience, strengthening Dartmouth’s historic commitment to a strong and inclusive sense of community, building and renovating Dartmouth’s facilities and strengthening the College’s financial resources. He worked to more fully integrate the professional schools into the intellectual life of the College. During his presidency undergraduate applications grew by 79 percent and the student body became increasingly diverse, with students of color and international students representing more than 40 percent of the student body. The College also made significant improvements to the financial aid program, including: tripling the budget for undergraduate aid, expanding its need-blind admissions policies to include international students, eliminating loans for all students and offering free tuition to students who come from families with incomes at or below $75,000.
President Wright focused on advancing the academic strength of the College by expanding and diversifying the faculty; resulting in more than 10 percent growth in the faculty of the Arts & Sciences, an 8:1 student-faculty ratio, and the highest percentage of tenured women faculty in the Ivy League and among the highest percentage of faculty of color. The three professional schools all participated in similar patterns of growth and improvement.
...
Wikipedia