This is the last installment of a series studying the persona of each Ivy League president—their bank accounts, their haircuts, and the extent to which they’re known and loved. Here’s Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim, who saves the world but stays down to earth.

Emerging from stage left, he creeps in slowly, his black leather jacket barely visible through the shadows.  Only a voice can be heard: “And Whosoever Shall Be Found / Without The Soul For Getting Down / Must Stand And Face The Hounds Of Hell / And Rot Inside A Corpse’s Shell!” Then he appears, white socks pulled up to just below his kneecaps, jutting out to turn-flick-kick-pose.  And we’re off!  The crowd goes wild.  The late, great MJ returns from the dead in the form of JimKim, president of Dartmouth.  He bops, he wiggles, he jumps, he jerks his head from side to side with the awkwardly abrupt movement of a nerd-thlete turned temporary pop sensation.  He does the arm wave, he does the groin thrust, he does it all.

In short, Jim Yong Kim is last but certainly not least in this presidential caucus of ours.  He’s a tough guy to poke fun at because he’s too busy having his own fun—whether he’s performing as Michael Jackson in “Dartmouth Idol” or saving the world.  He might be the freshest face on the Ivy Presidential scene (he took office in July 2009), but he may also prove to be one of the best…Insert MJ face joke here…too soon?

Kim has had his fair share of Ivy experience: He received his undergraduate degree from Brown and both his M.D. and Anthropology Ph.D. from Harvard.  But JimKim is no higher-ed hack.

Back when he was still a med student, he teamed up with future BFF/world-saver Paul Farmer to work for Partners In Health, an organization that provided health services in Haiti and has now expanded out to other countries.  As a founding member—and later executive director of PIH—JimKim did stuff like fight AIDS and tuberculosis in areas already stricken by poverty and public health systems that ranked among the world’s crappiest, and personally led a campaign to cut the cost of medicine by 90% and develop healthcare protocols now adopted by around 36 countries.  This guy is literally a life-saver.

He went on to gigs like Director of the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization and Chair of the Department of Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School.  Meanwhile, he remained BFFs with Farmer, with whom he taught Harvard undergrads and set up play-dates for their kids—who have now, in turn, apparently also become BFFs.

According to one of his former students, “Kim was his most inspirational instructor; he made you believe you could change the world.” Also, he clearly has a great sense of humor.  Also, he’s a genius.  Also, he was the quarterback of his High School football team.  How is this guy real?  Well, apparently his High School football team lost every single game they played his senior year.  Okay, so he is human after all.  But day-uummnn.

And yet some Fartmuths had to go and get things off to a bad start.  Kim—who was born in South Korea and immigrated with his family to the U.S. as a child—became the first Asian-American to lead an Ivy League school, and somehow this achievement turned into a racism-fest.  A popular Dartmouth email update, General Good Morning Message, responded to his appointment with comments such as:

Unless “Jim Yong Kim” means “I love Freedom” in Chinese, I don’t want anything to do with him. Dartmouth is America, not Panda Garden Rice Village Restaurant.

After offending pretty much everybody, GGMM apologized for confusing racism with humor and promised not to do it anymore.  Then two other dudes made a video about JimKim, featuring a chorus with lines like: “Jim Yong Kim / See ya at the gym / Gettin’ huge.” So, also not funny but at least not offensive this time!

But like his alter-ego MJ, the show must go on for JimKim.  It sure must be an adjustment living in this strange Dartmouth culture, so it’s a good thing he’s a trained anthropologist prepared to take part in the native ritual dance:

I will have to be taught the Salty Dog Rag, and I will have to be taught a lot about the culture of Dartmouth. But heck, I’m an anthropologist. That’s what I do for a living.

Since he’s still in his first year, his compensation record isn’t available yet, but his predecessor James Wright was the lowest-paid prez in the Ivy League, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.  In his last year, Wright went home with a total of $603,983 ($500,000 plus $103,983 in benefits).  We’ll see how it pans out for JimKim, but after writing all these president posts, I can’t help but think he’s worth the big bucks.

And now for the last equation to evaluate JimKim’s point value in totally legitimate mathematical terms:

[Estimated earnings based on predecessor’s paycheck - (expected cost of haircut + halo upkeep) + Google hits + dance moves] / years as Ivy president =

[$603,983 - ($30 + $50) + 116,000+ $10,000,000,000] / 0.75 =

13,334,293,204 Ivy President Points!

Looks like we got ourselves a winner.

Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim: AIDS-fighter, MacArthur Fellow, Asian… MJ impersonator. As part of some strange American Idol-style Dartmouth talent show (how you all survive Hanover escapes me…), here’s Prez Kim–leather-jacket, white glove, and raw sensuality clad–shimmying to the best of the late King of Pop:

A man of the people indeed. Serious Fame Caucus points your way Kimmy.

• Brown: Mayoral candidate banned from campus after “tossing pro-life video” — only in Providence, I guess?
• Columbia: Or maybe not only there: New York state politics — it just keeps getting better!
• Dartmouth: Senior starts his political career really early, hoping to become either Chris Young or Charles Rangel, depending.
• Harvard: Extra! Extra! Rich people, or students, or something, should spend more money, because that’s “honest”!
• Princeton: “This is the first in a three-part series on careers in investment banking and consulting.”

• Cornell: “I feel that an event that cost $27,000 and took 11 months to plan speaks for itself.” Um, right!
• Dartmouth: SO IT BEGINS. (Student Council, we mean!) Life is about to get sooo much more irritating, you guys.
• Harvard: There’s a new Egyptology professor — does this mean Indiana Jones is like real life now?
• Princeton: Ivy Council to meet at Princeton, will accomplish a great deal, probably.
• Yale: Student scores $666 on Jeopardy!, the real version for adults even! (Your IvyGate blogger feels a bit amateur now.)

• Columbia: Winter Olympics ongoing; less than a week until your IvyGate blogger gets his Parks and Recreation back.
• Dartmouth: This is all well and good, but what does ZAC Posen think about Iran?
• Penn: Shrug, um, we’re not sure how to feel about this. “Good”!
• Princeton: OMG ARE WE STILL TALKING ABOUT THAT HORRIBLE COLUMN AND INSANE HYPOTHETICALS?!?! Thank god Princeton kids are confined to Princeton where they can’t infect us.
• Yale: Yale Law alum tapped for court seat. This could be taught in j-school as an example of a “dog-bites-man” story.

Down in frigid Hanover, Greek Life has been hit with some fiery criticism; last night, mysterious signs appeared in front of Psi Upsilon fraternity, Chi Gamma Epsilon fraternity, and Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority, accusing the fratty fun-lovers of racism, misogyny, and general slovenliness.

Dear Brothers of Psi U, You have been charged with representing your brotherhood to Dartmouth as racist + insensitive.

The anonymous crusaders also upbraided the Dartmouth administration, posting a similar sign outside its Parkhurst building.

Dear Administration, You have been charged with not holding student organizations accountable when they present offensive, divisive, and insensitive attitudes to the Dartmouth community.

Best of all, the sign-writers covered Psi U’s porch with ladies lingerie, bearing handwritten messages like “”this won’t just ‘go away.’” (An anti-sexual-assault synecdoche? Whatever…)

Who these anti-Greeksters are and where they get off “charging” people with things remains a mystery. Also, what exactly have the fratboys done to so get their goat? The signs refer to Psi U’s use of “the Dartmouth Indian” as well as an apparently-offensive T-shirt. Dartmothian tipsters, make us wise!

More pics, courtesy of The Dartmouth, after the jump:

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The main storyline of the Men’s Super-G on Friday was whether or not American skier Bode Miller could finally shake the monkey off his back by winning the first gold medal of his career. Miller ended up taking the silver, and he was unexpectedly joined on the medal stand by fellow American and Dartmouth alum, Andrew Weibrecht ’09.

Weibrecht was the third skier out of the gate, and set the bar high for the rest of the competition with a mark of 1:30.65. Miller finally knocked Weibrecht out of the top spot, eclipsing his time by a mere 0.03 seconds. The pair of Americans were pushed lower on the podium, though, when Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway took the lead and kept it to take home the gold.

A bronze medal was more than was expected of Weibrecht going into the competition, and the 24-year-old described the experience as “incredible.” The medal was the first of these Winter Olympics for the Ivy League, but more are expected, mostly from the hockey rink, where the Ancient Eight has ties to 11 players from four countries.

Edit: As noted by our commenters, Weibrecht is still at Dartmouth “because of the flexibility of the D-plan.” Confusing! Anyway, congratulations to Weibrecht and to Dartmouth.

• Princeton: You get a Kindle! You get a Kindle! Everybody gets a Kindle!… and they won’t help you study.
• Brown: You may get Rashid Khalidi for a lecture, Brown, but Columbia gets him every day.
• Harvard: Famous figure skater makes her classmates feel even more inadequate.
• Dartmouth: You guys, distribution requirements are really hard to complete!
• Yale: “[The vegan options] take room away from other food that tastes better,” says the whiniest Yale undergraduate in the world.

A Continuous Lean brings us a look back at Hanover in the 1950s, which surprisingly looks quite a bit different from Hanover in the 2010s! The video, presented in CinemaScope for your viewing pleasure, follows “Freddie and Eddie” as they prepare for “the Mardi Gras of the North!”

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• Princeton students get bloggy, observant, and frustrated—“Today, Princeton has a $12.6 billion endowment, and the foosball table in Forbes is being held together by 2 plastic pens. FML.”
• Brown seeks volunteers for “piloting boats, tending the fires, selling merchandise.”
• Yale encourages eating Fritos in the library by rendering fines fiction.
• At casino night, Columbia students rolle dice for the dough, fedoras fly.
• Harvard dominates in the Rice and Bean Pot Burrito Eating Contest.
• Italians come to Dartmouth, get “very involved with the Italian club.”
• Penn students meet the internet, “About five clicks in, I see a screenful of penis all up in my grill.”