A search is underway for the inaugural James Frank Family Executive Director of Dartmouth Dialogues, an initiative that is creating a national model for facilitating challenging conversations across political and personal divides.

Reporting to Senior Vice President for Community and Campus Life and Chief Student Affairs Officer Jennifer Rosales, the executive director will be a recognized leader in the promotion of civil discourse who can build on the work done thus far and extend its impact.

“Dartmouth Dialogues started with our faculty bringing a range of perspectives on divisive issues into the classroom,” says President Sian Leah Beilock, who has made dialogue a priority of her administration. “We are looking for a leader to continue that legacy—deepening the bench of faculty, students, and staff driving this initiative on campus and beyond.”

The search comes as Dartmouth has achieved more than half of a $50 million goal to fully fund Dartmouth Dialogues in perpetuity—including a $25 million gift from Karen and Jim Frank ’65 and their son Daniel ’92 comprised of a $10 million endowment to name the executive directorship and an additional $15 million dollar-for-dollar challenge to support Dialogues programming. 

A search advisory committee will be co-chaired by the leaders who helped President Beilock launch Dialogues in 2024: Kristi Clemens, who has served as executive director, and Elizabeth F. Smith, the executive director for faculty engagement for Dialogues.

Clemens has been named associate vice president for institutional case management and community support, also reporting to Rosales, a role she began July 15. 

In that new role, she is overseeing how Dartmouth provides behavioral intervention, case management, and crisis management for students, faculty, and staff throughout the institution, helping to streamline policies and processes for members of the community facing difficult times, including the work of the Time Away Office, which supports students who are navigating the process of taking time away from and returning to Dartmouth.

“My goal from the beginning has been to see Dialogues to a place where it was well known on campus and had some successes, and where the conditions were right to launch the initiative into something bigger for Dartmouth and higher education more broadly,” says Clemens, who was previously Dartmouth’s assistant vice president for equity and compliance and Title IX coordinator, and has held a variety of leadership roles in student affairs. “The time is right to find our next leader for this work, and I am excited for this transition. Leading Dialogues has been a great privilege, and I’m grateful to everyone who has supported this work.”

“When I first sat down with faculty to talk about building an initiative around dialogue skills, I couldn’t have imagined where we’d be today. So much of that distance was covered because of Kristi,” says Smith, the Paul M. Dauten Jr. Professor of Biological Sciences and former dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “She brought leadership, deep expertise, and the ability to work across the institution. Dialogues would not be what it is without her, and I know she’ll thrive in her next role at Dartmouth.”

In addition to co-chairs Smith and Clemens, the search committee members include:

• Temi Bailey ’28
• Jason Barabas ’93, professor of government and director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences
• Michael Griesi, senior director, principal gifts and campaign planning
• Tennille Haynes, associate vice president for campus life and inclusive initiatives
• Melissa Herman, senior lecturer in psychological and brain sciences
• Amy Keeler, assistant dean of graduate student affairs, Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies
• Kathryn Kennedy, associate vice president for communications
• John McKnight, dean of undergraduate student affairs
• Jude D. Poirier ’28
• Pari Sidana ’28
• Sean Westwood, associate professor of government

Among other initiatives, Dartmouth Dialogues collaborates with campus partners such as the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, the Dartmouth Political Union, and others to bring prominent speakers to Dartmouth to model constructive discourse with a broad range of perspectives. Speakers have included former Vice President Mike Pence, New York Times opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed ’81, and former Secretaries of State John Kerry and Mike Pompeo.

Faculty-led special topic series have addressed issues related to conflict in the Middle East and Borders and Immigration.

A 2025 survey found that 93% of Dartmouth students believe engaging with challenging perspectives is an essential part of their education, and 66% percent of first-year respondents said they considered Dartmouth’s commitment to fostering dialogue across differences in their college choice. 

“Faculty, staff, students, and alums each bring something different to Dialogues, and the next executive director will need to understand what each group needs and what each has to offer,” Smith says.

The Dialogues initiative is helping students develop dialogue skills, including incoming students at first-year orientation, sophomores during Sophomore Summer, undergraduate advisors, students in the Rockefeller Center’s Dartmouth Leadership Attitudes & Behaviors Program, and through partnerships with the Hopkins Center for the Arts, the Hood Museum of Art, the Outdoor Programs Office, and with external organizations such as the StoryCorps One Small Step program, the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, Seeds of Peace, and the Constructive Dialogue Institute. 

In addition to the new executive director, Stephanie Glaros—who has worked closely with Dartmouth Dialogues as associate director of campus partnerships with StoryCorps’ One Small Step program—has joined Dialogues as deputy director, beginning July 20. Along with program coordinator Trevor Fornara, who joined Dartmouth in the spring, Glaros is focusing on developing on-campus programming and initiatives tailored to the Dartmouth community. 

The search committee will be assisted by the search firm Issacson, Miller, which is accepting applications and nominations.