On the AD Search

In the early days of Saturday Night Live there was a running gag that included Chevy Chase issuing the same punchline each week, "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead."

That line came to mind this morning when I read a Daily Dartmouth story on the search for a new Dartmouth director of athletics that the story says still hasn't started. From the story:

According to (Acting Dean) Spears, the College is now in a position to begin the process. The first step will be hiring a search firm to assist in identifying candidates, she added.

“We anticipate launching the search in the very near future,” Spears said. “A lot of logistics are still being ironed out.”

The College has not made a decision regarding which search firm it will hire, she said.

“We’ve been talking to a few search firms, looking for the right match for Dartmouth,” Spears said. “As soon as we make that decision, then all of a sudden you’ll see probably lots of activity around the AD search.”

I'm not privy to the inner workings of the search, but the Daily Dartmouth had a story about Harper's decision on Jan. 14, 2009. That's 16 months ago today.

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The local daily has a story wrapping up spring practice. From the story:

The most glaring question heading into the 2010 season is: Who will be Dartmouth's quarterback? In addition, the Big Green seems to be a step slow in executing the revamped attack configured by new offensive coordinator Jim Pry, although teams' defensive units are often ahead of their offensive counterparts in spring ball.

Throw in five lengthy road trips in 2010 and the fact that not even a miracle worker might be able to turn Dartmouth's defense around in a matter of months and Dartmouth may still find itself struggling for victories.

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The Brown Bear Blogger lists his Top 12 FCS running backs in the country for next fall and sneaks Dartmouth's Nick Schwieger into the final spot. It would be a surprise if Craig Haley over at The Sports Network includes Schwieger when he gets around to his top running backs, but it says here that No. 22 definitely belongs in the conversation.

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The Daily Pennsylvanian has an interactive chart on Ivy League "yield rates," for the Class of 2014 around the Ivy League. Click on the school and up will come the rate from the class of 2009 forward. To the untrained eye it doesn't seem there's all that much difference year to year (although Dartmouth's jumped 7 percent this spring). Of more interest, perhaps, is the difference from school to school.

Dartmouth alum Jacques Steinberg, writing in the New York Times, had this to day about yield and what it means to the waitlist:

Dartmouth, my alma mater, said its yield this spring was 55 percent. That is a 7 percentage point increase over last year — a jump so large that no applicant may be admitted from the waiting list this year, according to Maria Laskaris, the dean of admissions and financial aid.

A year ago Dartmouth took 95 students off the list. Penn, according to a story in the Daily P, took 100 last year and will probably take 10-15 this year.

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Talk of Big Ten expansion has included mention of the fact that the Big Ten schools are members of the Association of American Universities. From a St. Louis Post-Dispatch story about the chance that Missouri will be tapped by the Big Ten:

The university offers a broad base of programs, including a world-renowned journalism school, and is a 102-year member of the 63-school Association of American Universities — a distinction of research commitment that marks all 11 Big Ten schools and is considered a baseline for Big Ten membership.

That sent me scurrying to the Association of American Universities website to see who those 63 schools are. It turns out that seven Ivy League schools are members. The only one that isn't? Dartmouth.

Is it because Dartmouth isn't – by name at least – a university? I don't know.