Take Back Dartmouth

By Andrew Grossman | Monday, October 1, 2001

Dartmouth's alumni are on the verge of losing what say they have over College policy. Now is the time to win it back, and a dedicated group of alumni is aiming to do just that. And if you're an alumnus or alumni, they need your support.

In 1990, Dartmouth's Association of Alumni passed an amendment to its constitution backed by Dartmouth's administration. Since 1891, one-half of Dartmouth's Board of Trustees had been elected by alumni vote, via the Association. Though removed from the College's day-to-day operations, alumni, increasingly called-upon to fund ever more ambitious construction plans and programs, had a significant role in the governance of Dartmouth, through the accountability of their Board members. That is, until 1990.

The College's amendment was constructed misleadingly, ignoring the rights and responsibilities granted the Association in 1891. Unfortunately, it was passed by the Association's membership and subsequently transferred to the Board of Trustees responsibility for the reelection of alumni-elected trustees. The Board has said that this measure was intended to prevent such elections from becoming a referendum on the Board's policies. In other words, the Board has recognized that its agenda is foreign to most of the College's alumni and therefore believes that the Board should no longer have to report to alumni at all.

Other of the Board's actions smack of a similar arrogance. The 'Trustees' Charge' prevents alumni trustees from communicating their views to their constituency, the alumni body. The Association of Alumni's College-backed 'nominating guidelines' (which were adopted without the approval of the Association's membership by its executive committee) for alumni-elected trustees, issued in 1999, restrict communications between trustee candidates and the alumni body. Without the information necessary to cast an informed vote, many of Dartmouth's Alumni have elected not to vote at all; over 80% of alumni did not return ballots in the last election.

The Association of Alumni, which once represented the interests of Dartmouth's graduates, is now little more than a wing of the College's alumni relations office, fulfilling its legal responsibilities as quietly as possible so as to grant the Trustees maximum latitude at a time when their acts have been especially controversial.

And things might continue this way indefinitely but for a small but growing group of alumni who had planned to bring these issues to the fore of the Association of Alumni's September 15th meeting (the meeting was cancelled and has yet to be rescheduled). Though its debut was delayed, 'The Dartmouth Alumni for Open Governance Committee' has redoubled efforts to restore trustee accountability to an increasingly disaffected alumni body.

In a February letter to the Association of Alumni's executive committee, the Open Governance Committee proposed the following reforms of the Association's operations:

—That the Association evaluate how its close relationship with Dartmouth's alumni relations office hinders its rights under the 1891 contract.

—That the Association consider the conflicts of interest that result from having alumni relations office employees serve on its executive committee and from depending upon the alumni relations office for basic organizational resources.

—That the Association independently determine its budgetary needs, including the hiring of an independent counsel and more frequent communication with the alumni body, especially regarding the Association's annual meetings and nominations for internal elections.

—That the Association improve such communication with its membership. Meetings, meeting agendas, budget proposals, and nominations for internal offices are not currently announced to Association members. The Open Governance Committee recommends that alumni be notified of these ''bare bones' governance items' and that the Association create a website.

—That the Association reform its voting procedures. Members should be allowed to vote in Association elections by mail ballot or electronically, and, crucially, be allowed to vote for candidates other than those selected by the Association's nominating committee.

—That the 1999 nomination guidelines restricting communications between candidates and alumni and even between alumni on behalf of candidates be scrapped so that alumni might be better informed in elections.

—Finally, that the Association hold its annual meetings in cities other than Hanover that may be more accessible to portions of the alumni body.

None of these recommendations should be the least bit controversial. Indeed, an Alumni Association with its priorities straight would welcome such efforts to improve its constituency's involvement and further their interests. The Committee on Open Governance, however, has received no formal replies from any executive committee members to its February letter. It is clear now that the executive committee, little more than a front for several offices of Dartmouth College (alumni relations, development, the Board of Trustees, the President's office), is uninterested in expanding alumni involvement in College affairs at the expense of decreasing the power of increasingly absolute fiat.

Fortunately, the choice to embrace or reject openness is not entirely the College's to make. Not yet, anyway. The Association of Alumni is compelled to govern by its Constitution, which provides for extensive alumni involvement when not hobbled by governing administration patsies.

Thus, the next meeting of the College's Association of Alumni will be an important one, a showdown between those who believe alumni ought to have a say in Dartmouth's operations, ought to be able to balance an increasingly-radical administration whose only interest in alumni opinion lies in silencing the squeaky and keeping up expected contributions, and those who (despite their position serving 'on behalf' of alumni) are a part of that administration.

The Committee on Open Governance's recommendations are about issues larger than the Student Life Initiative (which many alumni oppose, though you'd never know it by reading the Alumni Magazine, infrequent Alumni Association mailings, or, of course, anything from the alumni relations office).

As a whole, these recommendations, if enacted, will restore accountability to alumni of Dartmouth's operations before the College is able finally to wriggle out of those few obligations to its alumni that still restrict it.

Trustees and alumni should not be pitted against one another, as they have been since the surprise announcement of the SLI two years ago. Instead, these groups should work with one another for the betterment of the College, as the 1891 contract mandates and as the Board of Trustees is obligated to do, even at its apparent displeasure. Open governance is essential to accomplishing this laudable goal and bringing to an end an era of closed-door meetings and rule by sneak attack. Thus, The Dartmouth Review commends those alumni on the Committee for Open Governance—especially Bill Tell '56—for sacrificing their time, effort, and, too often, patience, to make a place for interested alumni in the discussion of Dartmouth's future.

Alumni who are able should attend the next meeting of the Association of Alumni, which will be held in Hanover. After they are announced, details of the meeting's date and specific location will be printed in these pages and on The Dartmouth Review's website.

Alumni wishing to join or learn more about the 'Dartmouth Alumni for Open Governance Committee' should mail the Committee at:

Dartmouth Alumni for Open Governance
P.O. Box 5488
Hanover, NH 03755

Take Back Dartmouth

Article Tools

Related Articles