Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2005/03/11/alumni_seek_constitution_change_again.php

Alumni Seek Constitution Change (Again)

Friday, March 11, 2005

A group charged with drafting a new constitution for the Association of Alumni released an interim report in mid-February outlining a series of dramatic reforms to College governance similar to those the alumni voted against in 2003.

Dartmouth Alumni Council

— Josiah Stevenson '57 heads the task force. —

Josiah Stevenson '57, chairman of the Task Force on Alumni Governance and a member of the Alumni Council, said the working proposal, which is not yet finalized, would bring alumni governance under "one organizational aegis" in a "more democratic" setup.

Recognizing that past reform efforts have been polarizing—the last proposed constitutional revision lost by only two votes in December 2003—the task force sought to include critics of the last measure. To that end, Mr. Stevenson asked two members of Dartmouth Alumni for Open Governance, John Daukas '84 and Bill Hutchinson '76, to join his effort. The task force also distributed copies of their recent proposal to alumni club officers for comments in February.

"We've bent over backwards to do a reconciliation job with all people who felt either excluded from the process," Mr. Stevenson said.

Despite these efforts to include dissenting views, DAOG's members are routinely overruled on the task force, said William Tell '56 of Alumni for Open Governance. Their proposals are heard but often ignored, he said.

Many of the task force's preliminary recommendations resemble those in the defeated constitution, including the manner of reorganizing the Association and the allowance for electronic voting.

The most striking similarity between the two plans is the merger of the Alumni Council into the Alumni Assocation. Right now, the Association directly elects its own leadership, while members of the various alumni groups, including classes and regional clubs, elect representatives to the Council, which serves as an advisory body. The defeated proposal would have placed the Council directly in charge of the Association, eliminating the directly-elected executives. It is unclear who would maintain control in the task force's proposed system, in which the Council, renamed the Assembly, would exist alongside the Association officers.

The task force sought to address DAOG concerns that the Alumni Council "was coming out as the dominant force" in the last proposed constitution, Stevenson said. The latest proposals, he said, restrain the Council's power compared to the last model.

Many alumni saw the 2003 reforms as an attempt by the College to gain control of its alumni through the Council, which maintains close ties with Dartmouth administrators.

Alumni would be better represented under the task force's proposal, Mr. Stevenson said, with more at-large representatives elected by the alumni as a whole. The task force's written proposal, though, shows the number of at-large seats actually reduced from 21 to 18, just like in the defeated constitution. Also as before, the four College-recognized minority groups—black, American Indian, Asian and homosexual alumni—would also expand their representation in the Assembly from one each to as many as three each.

One innovation in the task force's working proposal is the Alumni Liaison Board, composed of six at-large members elected by the Association and six other alumni leaders, including the Association president. Mr. Stevenson said the Liaison Board would periodically poll alumni and hold "town meetings" to gauge alumni sentiment. The Liaison Board would then pass their findings on to the administration, a process he says is complicated and even ineffective at present.

It is unclear, though, how the Liaison Board's mission would differ from that of the Alumni Council, whose current mission is to act as "principal spokesperson of alumni sentiment to the administration" and "to communicate effectively information about the College and the Council to the alumni body."

The confusion, which may stem from the preliminary nature of the proposals, seems widespread. Mr. Tell said he found it "hard to understand what they're talking about and how it would work." The relationship and relative authority of the three governance bodies in the new model, he said, remains unclear.

The task force's proposal further failed to adequately address issues regarding the election of alumni Trustees, Mr. Tell said. Per an 1891 agreement, the alumni elect half the members of the Board of Trustees, and Tell said the new model, like the 2003 constitution proposal, could effectively disenfranchise the alumni.

The new setup would increase by up to 200 the number of signatures required to nominate a Trustee candidate by petition, and would reduce the number of candidates nominated from the normal three to only two. Four candidates were nominated this year because of the Board's expansion.

According to the proposal the task force released in February, the Association's nominating committee would produce the official Trustee slate. The proposal voted down in 2003, though, gave these powers to the Alumni Council, a group not representative of all alumni, but which instead reflects a mixture of specific alumni interest groups with close ties to the College. The Council, Tell said, usually "has a different sense of how the College is doing these days," and has been reluctant to oppose the College administration on controversial issues like the Student Life Initiative.

Mr. Tell also questioned whether the voting on the proposed new constitution, were it passed by the Council, would be fair. Right now, Association members must be physically present at the annual meetings in Hanover, and only a small minority are able to come.

While Mr. Stevenson said the task force's recommendations allow alumni to vote remotely, they can only do so once the new constitution is in force. Until then, the old rules remain in effect, so the new constitution will be ratified only by those present in Hanover.

The task force is not expected to produce a final report for some months.