To the Dartmouth community:

In response to the needs of college students whose lives have been disrupted by Hurricane Katrina, I have today approved a plan to offer temporary admission to academically qualified undergraduates from the colleges and universities whose operations have been affected.

Because we are still three weeks away from the opening of our fall term on September 21, we hope this will be of particular help to students who need time to assess their options and take action but hope to continue their studies this fall.

The students will be admitted under a temporary expansion of our Special Community Student Program, and we will not impose a limit on the number. We will review the program on a term-by-term basis, and will expect students to return to their home institutions once that is possible.

We will waive the tuition for these students, but they will be admitted with the provision that they pay the regular tuition at their home institutions. We envision that the home institutions will use the tuition funds to help rehabilitate their campuses and to help offset some of the impact on their local employees.

We are not in a position to offer housing on campus, but we will reach out to the community to organize a volunteer effort to help any students admitted under this program to find housing within a reasonable distance of the College.

There are many details of this arrangement yet to be worked out, but I am confident that we will soon be prepared to accept visiting students, and I look forward to welcoming them. We will work with affected institutions, higher education associations, the media, and members of the Dartmouth family to get this information out as widely and quickly as possible. Inquiries about these arrangements may be directed to Julie Bell, Coordinator of Dartmouth's Special Community Student Program at (603) 646-3098 or via email at Julie.Bell@Dartmouth.Edu.

Paul Danos, Dean of Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, has also announced that Tuck will arrange for a limited number of special exchange students to be admitted to the second year of the MBA program. Arrangements for students in Dartmouth's other graduate and professional programs are under consideration.

While we are putting the special admissions program in place, I have asked a range of Dartmouth administrators to find ways we may be able to convey material aid and assistance directly from Dartmouth to the affected areas. We will explore options to grant leave time to faculty and staff members who wish to join with various agencies to assist in hurricane relief efforts in the affected areas. Student interest in participating in relief programs is being coordinated by the Tucker Foundation. I expect more information on these programs to be available next week.


James Wright
President