Not in Our North Country.

By Daniel F. Linsalata | Sunday, June 11, 2006

As the Sons and Daughters of Dartmouth stumble groggily out of the sleep-deprived haze wrought by final exams to wrap up another academic cycle at our hollowed institution, a cursory reflection reminds us that the most contentious issues of the year seemed not to come from amongst the undergraduates, but rather from the ranks of her alumni. Sure, there were some disturbances on the Plain: Tubestock appears to be all but a lost cause, and this spring’s Immigration Rally caused a minor stir—probably due largely to the actions of this very paper. But those setbacks were far overshadowed by the rolling back of the moratorium on Greek houses, the myriad Dartmouth Olympic heroes in Turin in February, and upgrades to athletic and residential facilities; all unquestionably victories for undergraduates.

On the other hand, it seemed nigh impossible to go a week without hearing some absurd twist to the ongoing Alumni Constitution debacle. To rehash, at this point, the myriad reasons why the Alumni Governing Task Force’s (AGTF) proposed constitution is objectionable would probably be beating a dead horse, but Trevor Burgess ’94, a member of the AGTF and President of Dartmouth Gay and Lesbian Alumi summarized it best during the webcast discussion in Boston in late March when he said, “We’re not trying to create a perfectly representative system here.” I couldn’t agree more: he captures flawlessly the problems inherent in the Constitution as it has been drafted.

In the closing days of Sping Term, Andrew Seal, the Editor in Chief of the Dartmouth Free Press, and I published a joint editorial in the Daily Dartmouth in which we outlined our mutual objections to the absurd document. As Seal later wrote on his weblog, The Little Green Blog, many people would be surprised that he and I—two people whom otherwise have little to talk about—would collaborate to produce the piece, but the fact remains that “there is really no two ways to see this draft.” Although copyright policies forbid me from reproducing the article in its entirety here, it is accessible on the Daily D’s interweb site at (http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=2006053102010). We outlined, probably for the umpteenth time, the main faults of the document; in short, its final result will be to create anything but a representative system for Dartmouth’s alumni.

The main shortcoming of the AGTF’s proposal, however, is one not previously discussed at length in these pages. Namely, that it will only serve to perpetuate the existence of “insider” and “outsider” factions seeking to impose their respective visions of Dartmouth upon her students. The outsiders claim that the insiders’ vision is perverse and destructive to the fiber of the College; the outsiders’ vision, by turn, has been termed anachronistic and out-of-touch. If one were generous, credence could possibly be given to both these claims. But whatever.

A simple fact still goes overlooked: the Board of Trustees and alumni governance bodies are no place for a turf war. The screaming back and forth has drowned out the voices of students, those who are on the ground in Hanover and know exactly what is going on in the classroom, in the Greek system, and in other every facet of the Dartmouth experience. So long as the paradigm creating insider and outsider factions goes unchecked, the focus is drawn away from the students, and back on to a vicious battle for power.

The most recent appalling example of those in power desperately clinging to it arose last week when Merle Adelman ‘80, first vice president of the Association of Alumni, penned a letter to the alumni body declaring that, in light of the upcoming constitution vote, officer elections for the Association will be postponed indefinitely. Per the body’s Constitution, the date for the next year’s Annual Meeting (and elections) is set during the current year’s Meeting. Specifically, in October 2005, the Association leadership announced that the 2006 meeting will take place on October 15, over Homecoming Weekend. As outlined in Adelman’s letter, the executives unilaterally decided to cancel the elections to ease the transition, should the Constitution be approved. There are two rather self-evident problems with this action. First, nowhere in the Association’s bylaws or Constitution is the executive board authorized to unilaterally postpone or cancel elections; the executives unquestionably acted far outside of the bounds of their allotted power. Second, the declaration inherently presumes that the Constitution will be approved by the alumni at large—far from a foregone conclusion. If or when the Constitution vote fails, the current executives stay in power far beyond their duly elected terms.

The alarming implication of this action is found between the lines. A newly-elected slate of officers could, in theory, abort the Constitution vote entirely; it is well within their power to do so. As such, the refusal to admit new officers reeks of gerrymandering by a body that is doing all it can to usher the Constitution through to approval by any means necessary. Whatever happened to operating fairly under the constitution that is currently in place, rather than under the rules of one that they anticipate to eventually be in place?

More to the point, whatever happened to Dartmouth being about the undergrads and their experience here? Those who seem most embroiled in this turf war seem to forget those things that define the essence of Dartmouth. Dartmouth is many things to many people, and rarely do those things match each exactly, even for just two people. So as the Class of 2006 prepares to set off into the real world and join the hallowed ranks of loyal Dartmouth alumni, let us focus upon the universal aspects, the things that hold the same appeal for every Son or Daughter of Dartmouth who has crossed the Green over the last 237 years. As President Ernest Hopkins elucidated in the quotation on the cover of this issue, and as Richard Hovey immortalized in his hymn “Men of Dartmouth,” the North Country, Mt. Moosilauke, the snow-clad countryside, and the Granite of New Hampshire becomes part of everyone one of us. We all share it equally; it defines us and defines Dartmouth. It is a fine place to share—I would posit that it is indeed the finest place in the world to share—but it is certainly no venue for a turf war. Any system, document, or constitution that tears asunder this corner of the girdl’d Earth that we all share and hold sacred will, in the long run, hurt both the undergrads who live in it on a daily basis, and the alumni who, in the depths of their hearts, will always consider it home.

Not in Our North Country.

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