July 1 was a historic day for Asian-Americans as Dr. Jim Yong Kim stepped into his post as the first Asian-American president of an Ivy league institution.   Dr. Kim comes to Dartmouth from his tenure at Harvard and what you may not know is that he first arrived in Iowa at the age of 5 before 99% of all Korean-Americans immigrated to the U.S.  He even played high school football growing up in Iowa.  Along the way, Dr. Kim was the director of the HIV/AIDS department of the World Health Organization and was once named Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential people back in 2006.  Fast forward to yesterday: Dr. Kim officially became the president of Dartmouth College, a truly historic day.    So what was on the agenda yesterday?  Dr. Kim toured the engineering and business schools and met with faculty, students and then addressed the Dartmouth community.

Kim told the students, alumni, faculty and staff gathered on the Green that it was his belief in the ability of Dartmouth students to take on global problems broader than those of his own work that led him to forgo those other career possibilities.

“It’s a gamble for me but it’s a gamble that I took knowing that we were going to win,” Kim said, referencing his confidence in the potential of the College’s students. Read more>