The department of silver linings, also known as the editorial board, has been diligently scouring this week's account of Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim's first address to the college faculty in search of a few rays of sunshine amid the financial gloom. It wasn't easy, but we found a few.

First, the bad news. More layoffs are likely in the wake of endowment losses of $835 million, which left the college with a $50 million shortfall in operating revenue. “I think the size of the gap is much bigger than anyone ever thought,” Kim told Valley News staff writer Susan J. Boutwell following his meeting with the faculty.

And now, the worse news. Even assuming a growth rate in the endowment of 8 percent -- equal to Dartmouth's 10-year average -- the outlook for 2012 and beyond is not encouraging. “Every scenario has run a deficit,” Kim said. “And the deficits grow each year, as expenses continue to increase and revenues do not keep up -- even with positive endowment returns.” That sounds to us like a structural deficit, or as Kim put it, “Our financials are out of balance.”

How's that for a sobering outlook, not only for the college but also for the broader Upper Valley community, of which it is a prime economic engine? The situation has to be personally discouraging for Kim, who arrives with bold plans to make Dartmouth a major player in revolutionizing health care and American higher education. Financial planning and fundraising are taking up more than half his time, Kim told Boutwell.

Still, there were a couple of positives to be gleaned. One is that, unlike the previous round of budget cuts and layoffs earlier this year, nothing is off the table when it comes to figuring out where to cut, the new president said. That's as it should be, particularly when there is a widespread perception that the college's lowest-paid workers bore the brunt of the earlier cuts. It’s important for wealthy, elite institutions like Dartmouth to walk the walk and as well as talk the talk of equality. This, in fact, may be an important opportunity for the new administration to scrutinize all the things that the college does, with an eye toward jettisoning those that do not further its central mission. And it may well be that spending freely on non-essentials has become a way of life at Dartmouth, as well as at other elite institutions, and that general belt-tightening is in order.

Speaking of equality, Kim also gave a ringing endorsement to need-blind admissions in responding to a faculty member's suggestion to suspend the policy until finances improve. The president said that he would consider such a move to be a crisis, and indeed, need-blind admissions constitute an important tool to secure access to Dartmouth for students of all economic circumstances whose qualifications merit admission.

Finally, we were delighted that members of the faculty pointedly and publicly called for transparency in future budget cuts and for fairness in distributing the pain among the college's various constituencies. Theirs was a voice largely missing in the earlier round of cuts, at least publicly, and it is one that needs to be heard not only in the college's inner councils, but also in the larger community where faculty members live.