esponding to "Fracturing Tucker's Foundation"
Letter to the Editor,
The Tucker Foundation’s Mission Statement is to “Educate Dartmouth students to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens in the global community through service, character development, and spiritual exploration.” Over the last two years, Tucker has been undergoing a strategic reorganization process to better align its structure and focus with the stated mission. As with many changes involving institutional reorganization, the Tucker strategic planning process has provoked debate and discussion within the Foundation and the broader community. This questioning and the ongoing discussions are critical to the vitality and ultimate improvement of the Tucker Foundation. To that end, the April 13th article in the DFP did an excellent job identifying many key concerns; however, as senior leaders who have spent four years intimately involved with the work of Tucker Foundation, we feel the need to respond to some of the article’s factual claims via this letter.
The Tucker Foundation initiated the strategic reorganization process in the fall of 2005, in order to align its programs and infrastructure with its mission statement. As a major step in this process, the Foundation turned to a consulting agency for an external review. According to the final report of that firm, “In late March 2006, the Foundation retained Keeling & Associates, LLC (K&A) to provide consultation and technical assistance in completing a renewed process of strategic planning and organizational assessment that its leadership had begun in fall 2005.” Keeling and Associates were hired to improve Tucker’s performance, not to “cut costs”, nor to legitimate a previously designed program.
As part of their review, Keeling & Associates made every effort to meet with all of the Tucker Foundation’s stakeholders. According to Richard Keeling, the author of the final report, he and his associates met with the Foundation’s leadership team, “a group of the administrative support staff, three program advisors, the civic interns, and students who participate in Tucker activities,” as well as “a group of Tucker's community partners.” Furthermore, Keeling indicates, “We also invited staff members to contact us after the visit, and several did so, on a confidential basis.” Keeling held discussions, to which all of the Foundation’s student leaders – including Dartmouth Community Service (DCS) chairs and the Foundation’s 20 civic interns $mdash; were invited.
In summary, K&A conducted “31 individual and group interviews of Tucker leaders and staff and Dartmouth faculty, administrators, and students, and, using consistent qualitative methods, analyzed approximately 450 pages of narrative data, including several SWOT analyses completed by the Foundation.”
The final draft of the Keeling report was submitted on August 24, 2006 and presented to the staff the next day. All staff were invited to submit responses to the report to either the Director of Finance, the College Chaplain, or the Dean. Furthermore, Dean Lord made himself available to meet privately with any staff member who had related questions or concerns.
One of the cornerstones of the Tucker Foundation’s mission statement is student leadership, and, therefore, the Foundation’s reorganization plan has focused on the empowerment of student leaders. To this end, the Dean’s Student Advisory Council (DSAC) – a group of nine seniors with significant previous Tucker leadership experience, appointed by the four different Tucker program areas $mdash; was convened to research ways “to modify or improve the structure of the Tucker Foundation in order to increase its level of student governance.” To fulfill its charge, the members of DSAC spent the fall term researching service-learning institutions at twenty other universities nation-wide, in order to identify the best models of student leadership. DSAC also sent out surveys to more than 500 Dartmouth student participants of recent Tucker activities, and invited these students to attend focus groups discussing student leadership at Tucker.
Ultimately, the Council submitted a twenty-two page report, with eighteen recommendations for improving student leadership, on March 15, 2007. Discussions regarding the implementation of these recommendations are still ongoing as we write this article.
As a result of the work by K&A and the Dean’s Advisory Council, as well as discussions and reports by the Tucker staff, the Foundation has begun to finalize a new organizational chart. The new chart represents a synthesis of the goals of increasing student leadership and improving organizational efficiency, while simultaneously ensuring the job security of all Tucker staff members. Positions and job descriptions were reorganized in the new chart, but importantly NO full-time staff members lost their jobs in this transition.
One of the most significant changes is the creation of student leadership positions. The chart does not replace any of the current student leadership at Tucker $mdash; this includes all of the DCS chairs as well as the current civic interns, but creates two new categories of student leaders. The plan calls for more than ten new student directors to help with advising and leadership of various Tucker programs (i.e. Student Director for Education or Student Director for Kids & Mentoring). These directors will not replace the full-time staff members, but they will work closely with the student program leaders and to give students greater ownership of these programs. This will entail significant responsibility, but the success of students in directing the Nicaragua program $mdash; which is the Tucker Foundation’s single largest program in terms of budget $mdash; over the last five years illustrates that students can be relied upon to fill this role.
The second new student leadership position at the Foundation will be that of the student governing board. While the specifics of this board are still being worked out, it will be modeled after governing boards at other schools, as well as COSO at Dartmouth. The board will likely have a role in the approval and evaluation process for new and ongoing student programs, giving students a voice in Tucker programming. Discussions between staff and students, regarding the composition and purview of the governing board, will continue on through the summer and fall in order to insure that the board empowers student leaders while advancing the mission of the Foundation.
The Tucker Foundation’s strategic plan is part of a process designed to improve the Foundation’s organization and programs in line with Tucker’s stated mission. As the above letter makes clear, the April 13 article’s claim that “Students, staff, and members of the community” have been “deprived of their right … to be a part of the discussion in forming the plan” is entirely unfounded given the numerous opportunities for students, staff, and community members to participate. Nevertheless, this is an ongoing process and we wholeheartedly support the article’s effort in initiating a dialogue with the goal of “continued improvement….of the Tucker Foundation.” The plan is designed to improve Tucker’s level of synergistic functioning and can only be achieved if people constructively engage in the process. Ultimately, we hope to create a Tucker Foundation that is more connected with the campus community, more responsive to the needs of its constituencies, and better able to live up to the lofty mission it has been given.
We would invite anyone who is interested to contact any of us directly if you have further questions, comments, or concerns regarding any of the issues raised in this letter, the original article, or about the Foundation more g
enerally.
Dj Wolff, ’07
Dean’s Student Advisory Council
Chairman, 2006-2007
Ashley Halpin & Rachel Bloch
Dean’s Student Advisory Council
DCS Representatives
