Remarks as delivered by Dr. Jim Yong Kim, March 2, 2009

Remarks as delivered by Dr. Jim Yong Kim, March 2, 2009
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Download and listen to Dr. Kim's speech (11.8mb, MP3)

Thank you, Ed and Al, for your too generous introduction – and for the honor that you and your colleagues on the board of trustees have bestowed on me, in entrusting to me leadership of this magnificent institution—this college on the hill. And thank you, everyone, for the warmth you’ve already shown me as the newest member of the Dartmouth family.
On a personal note, I'd like to thank my parents. My father, Nhak Hee Kim who passed away more than twenty years ago, was a dentist - and dentists are among the most practical people on earth. He taught me the value of hard work, determination, and keeping both feet firmly on the ground. My mother, Oaksook Kim, studied theology and received her Ph.D. in philosophy. She taught me to respect every individual-while daring great things. Dare great things, keep both your feet on the ground. I hope that will prove to be a good formula for a president of Dartmouth.
As I embark on this exciting journey, I'm humbled by the example set by those who've gone before me - men like Ernest Hopkins, John Kemeny and John Sloan Dickey, about whom I will speak in a moment. And men like David McLaughlin and James Freedman - and of course Jim Wright.
Jim, you've devoted your life to Dartmouth, including 11 years as President. You leave enormous shoes to fill. Your tenure has enriched academic life at Dartmouth with an expansion of the faculty and the launch of new academic initiatives, and it's transformed the campus with an array of beautiful buildings. You and Susan created a warm and inviting atmosphere for all Dartmouth students, faculty and alums - and even for newcomers like me. My wife Younsook and I will do our best to continue to nurture this wonderful environment.
Younsook is sorry she can't be here today. As Ed mentioned, my second son was born just three days ago. It's been quite a week! My older son Thomas said to me just yesterday, "Daddy, why does everything have to happen to us at the same time?" But I can assure you that Thomas and Younsook are just as excited as I am in joining the Dartmouth community.
As I drove onto our snow covered campus today, I was struck once again by the spectacular setting in which Dartmouth students live and learn. I can’t imagine a more beautiful place to be a student – or, for that matter, a College President.
But far beyond its physical beauty, Dartmouth is an institution without parallel - unique, even - in higher education. This is a community bound by rich traditions and a vibrant, ever-evolving culture. The diversity here is real yet there's a strong, abiding sense of family that extends out to our 69,000 alumni. As an anthropologist, I understand and value the importance of cherished traditions, a deeply shared campus culture and a diverse, yet cohesive community. My family and I are anxious to learn about and embrace every bit of it.
Indeed, I'm looking forward to working with all of you in the years to come to preserve and strengthen what makes Dartmouth so special . . . to ensure that our College is appreciated and its influence felt ever more widely in the world . . . and to secure its future in a rapidly changing global landscape. These will be my top priorities as President and Chief Advocacy Officer of Dartmouth College.
Young people from many, many backgrounds come here because of the exceptional learning experience that Dartmouth offers – whether as undergraduates or to join the first-rate professional schools and graduate programs that the College can point to with great pride.
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Certainly, a vital part of that learning takes place in the classrooms in Kemeny, in Dartmouth Hall, the labs in Fairchild and among the stacks in Baker. But just as important to that learning is what happens out on Whitey Burnham Field, up on Mount Moosilauke, here on the stage in the Hop and, yes, even late at night on Webster Avenue. Education is not just about transferring knowledge - it is about learning how to be citizens of the world, how to work effectively with others as part of a team, and how to emerge from your studies with an enduring and robust philosophy of life.
Dartmouth is better equipped, perhaps more so than any other school in the nation, to teach these virtues . . . to help educate well-rounded leaders who can go forth and make the world a better place.
That brings me back to John Sloan Dickey, whose example and achievements were such an inspiration to me during the course of my selection as President of Dartmouth.
President Dickey left a lasting mark. He spent most of his career before becoming President outside of academia, but he believed passionately in the power of education to foster positive change. He was fond of telling students “the world’s troubles are your troubles.” And he believed that a Dartmouth education should equip young people to do something about those troubles. I believe that remains Dartmouth’s most important mission today.
Like President Dickey, I've spent much of my career in places that are very different from Hanover. I've spent plenty of time in the classroom, but also in the slums of Peru, amid the rural poverty of Haiti, in post-genocidal Rwanda, and in the snowy cold of Siberia.
In my small way, I've tried to make the world's troubles my troubles. I've tackled them directly by setting up treatment programs, working to lower the prices of life-saving drugs and changing global health policy. But I've always known that my own impact as an individual will be limited. That's why I've worked to teach and mentor young people who can have a far greater impact than me. That's what attracted me to this extraordinary place called Dartmouth College. Here, we have all the tools to prepare an army of future leaders: students like you who will go out into the world and, by making the most of what you learn from your professors and from each other, make that world more productive, more enlightened, more humane and more just.
We know we can create these leaders because Dartmouth faculty do what is thought to be impossible at other institutions - you teach so well that students give the quality of your instruction a 97 percent approval rating. At the same time, you do ground-breaking research and make great contributions to your field. It will be my job to ensure that you, the faculty, reach your highest aspirations, both as teachers and as scholars.
We know Dartmouth graduates can change the world . . . they already are. From the last two Secretaries of the Treasury, Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner, to the Ochieng' brothers, Milton and Fred. Inspired by a Dartmouth community service trip to Nicaragua, the Ochieng's returned to the small village in rural Kenya where they were born to start a clinic. This clinic administers not just medical care but hope itself. Dartmouth graduates all over the world are doing great things, and making us all proud.
I've found again and again in my career that when you set bold, ambitious goals, plenty of people will tell you that you're crazy or that it just can't be done. That's what they told us at Partners In Health, when we wanted to treat people suffering from multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis in the slums of Lima, Peru. And it's what they told us at the World Health Organization when we wanted to treat three million people living with HIV in developing countries.
I'm happy to say that we didn't listen to the naysayers. Now, people across the globe are being treated for both drug-resistant tuberculosis and HIV, and the naysayers have been converted.
If we teach nothing else at Dartmouth, we must teach our students to find their passion, to aim high, work hard, and settle for nothing less than to transform the world. I know Dartmouth students can achieve anything to which they commit themselves.
My job will be to make sure that Dartmouth gives you, our students, all the tools you need to do unprecedented things – whether in science or the arts or business or health – things that even today seem unimaginable. Who could ask for a better job than that?
The anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, “Never underestimate the capacity of a small group of committed souls to change the world, indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Well, we’re not such a small group at Dartmouth and I’ve already met a lot of committed souls here. The greatest privilege of my life will be to work with all of you as President, to make the world’s troubles our troubles, and to train leaders the likes of which the world has never seen, to take them on.
Thank you all for welcoming me. I can't wait to get started. It is, as we all know, a small college. And yet the Kim family already loves it. Thank you very much.