Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2007/04/24/tdr_interviews_stephen_smith_88.php
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The Dartmouth Review: Can you tell me a little bit about your own time at Dartmouth?
Stephen Smith: I loved my time at Dartmouth and was very active in extracurricular activities. For example, I played freshman football at the position of tight end. Sports were a major thing; I lived in Richardson Hall and played a lot of intramural sports for my dorm.
My majors were history and philosophy. I also had a great time throughout as a member of Sigma Nu Fraternity, in which I held several offices including Lt. Commander and the Social Chair. It was just a great, great four years; I loved every minute of it.
TDR: Did Dartmouth prepare you for your current role as a professor of law?
Smith: It did, and it did because then it really lived up to the billing of a small college academic environment. We had very small classes in history and philosophy. Students weren’t just passive participants; a student wouldn’t just sit and take notes; there was engagement with professors, in conversation. It was an intimate environment, and this intimacy really forced you to think, and it forced you to be an active learner instead of a passive participant—and you would be challenged to defend your positions. It really did prepare me.
Critical thinking was another skill I picked up; I sharpened and honed my writing abilities to the point where I was chosen as a proficient writer by the Dartmouth Writing and Composition Center. There were benefits throughout. Professors were accessible as well: I spent hours in professor’s offices, talking about issues I was interested in, talking about papers. It was just wonderful.
TDR: To continue on that note, one of the planks of your platform is keeping Dartmouth College a College. Can you elaborate on that?
Smith: Well, we all know that it is called the College. Should it be a College in name or also a College in fact? We also know, of course, that there’s not just an undergraduate school there but also a Medical School, Thayer Engineering, Tuck Business, and other graduate programs. When I talk about Dartmouth’s being a small College, I’m not saying we should just be an undergraduate institution and get rid of the graduate and professional schools. What I’m saying is, look, it’s not just enough to be called a College. We need to focus on what a College is, and, specifically, the small College that Daniel Webster said Dartmouth was, and then to make sure the reality matches our rhetoric.
To my mind, a College is a place where student education comes first, and that needs to be the reality at Dartmouth, and it’s not going to be the reality if instructors are given all sorts of incentives to spend their most productive time on research outside of the classroom. Students need to be the focus of professors. That’s not to say there shouldn’t be research; it’s to say that nothing should trump the importance of educating the students at a place that truly is a College. That does entail a sprawling bureaucracy: At a small college, you pour resources into students and faculty.
You don’t waste money on more deans for Parkhurst Hall. We need to be a place where students come first, where class sizes are small, and where students have access to the courses they want and need for their majors. We need to focus our energy and resources on providing the best undergraduate and graduate education for our students. Students have to come first, and our allocation of resources needs to reflect this commitment. Our staffing decisions need to reflect that. We can’t just say it.
TDR: In the last five years the College has added 111 new administrative positions, and just this last week the Daily Dartmouth reported that the College is letting two of their top Italian professors go. What kind of balance should the College strike between the administration and academia?
Smith: I think we need to realize what draws students to Dartmouth, and it’s not the administration; it’s the professors and the academics. The kinds of students we are trying to recruit will have great opportunities at all kinds of other prestigious schools; therefore, we need to be special and distinctive if we hope to continue attracting the best students in the country.
If we believe that student academics comes first, then job one is making sure that we are of unsurpassed quality in the classroom. The statistics that you just mentioned: a growing and sprawling bureaucracy and letting go of professors…and it’s not just the letting go of professors: we’ve had all sorts of popular programs either cancelled or kept from getting off the ground. The speech program, the human biology program, and the writing program are all examples. All of these are academic programs fully funded by outside sources that were very popular with students and with professors, and they were all canceled by the administration.
So this is part of what I see as the bigger problem: we’re losing sight of our mission. Education of students is our primary mission, and it is not providing jobs for deans; it’s not hiring sustainability directors; it’s not doing any of those things. It has to be about the experience that Dartmouth students get. I mean, for crying out loud, you guys are paying $45,000 a year to go there, and you ought to see the benefit of that in the classroom. Downsizing the faculty is absolutely the last thing we need at this time. We need to hire more professors so that we can bring class sizes down. We need more professors so that students are not shut out of classes that they need for their majors.
Just on the issue of student to faculty ratio, the Wright Administration likes to brag about having brought the ratio down from 10:1 to 8:1. What they don’t tell you is where 8:1 places us in comparison to our peers in the Ivy League: it places us tied with Harvard for second to last place. Well, I think we ought to be at the top of that list. As the only College in the Ivy League, we ought to have the smallest student to faculty ratio instead of one of the largest, and you’re not going to reduce that ratio when you’re getting rid of professors.
TDR: Freedom of speech is another theme that runs throughout your campaign. Is Dartmouth doing enough on this issue?
Smith: No. I think that Dartmouth, thanks to the independent trustees and Trustee T.J. Rodgers in particular, has made some important first steps towards ensuring freedom of speech, but the question is, are we doing enough and are we living up to, in practice, our rhetoric on free speech? I worry that we don’t fully live up to our promises on that issue, and that’s a shame because free speech is an absolutely essential component to an institution of the mind. John Sloan Dickey’s famous phrase was that “liberal arts if done right would be liberating arts.”
The question is, what’s the College’s actual record on free speech? The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education upgraded Dartmouth’s rating from red, the lowest possible rating, to green. The College touts that increased rating as a sign that there are no free speech problems, but that’s just misleading at best because FIRE all along has maintained that there remains serious free speech problems at the College, and that Dartmouth can’t claim to fully respect free speech as long as it continues to allow past punishments for freedom of speech to go uncorrected.
They specifically cited the de-recognition of Zeta Psi. Zeta Psi was disciplined for what amounts to speech: a newsletter. It may have been tasteless, but free speech isn’t just for the inoffensive. It applies across the board. That’s an example of a problem that we continue to have when it comes to freedom of speech. Related to that is a bigger problem: the College, even while it touts its protection of free speech, continues to insist on a distinction between speech on the one hand, which is protected, and harassment. They’ve taken the position that any speech that is offensive—like Zeta Psi’s—is really harassment and not speech. Well then, what you’re doing is creating a big exception to the first amendment, and that is not consistent with a true understanding of free speech. Whether speech is offensive or not it should be protected on a campus that claims, as Dartmouth does, to give full protection to speech.
So I remain concerned about that, and there have been a lot of other causes for concern. President Wright, in a letter to students last fall in connection with the North Dakota incident, took the position that there is no right—and he put the right to free speech in quotation marks, signaling that he doesn’t really take that all that seriously—he said there is no “right” to offend. Well, here you have the President of the College putting students on notice that he doesn’t think there’s any right to say things that offend other people. What effect does that have on the expression of ideas on campus? I think it can only have a chilling effect. That leads to self-censorship, and self-censorship is just as antithetical to freedom of speech as official censorship by the administration.
I think we’ve made progress on the issue of free speech, but there’s a lot more to be done, and if elected I hope to work with T. J. Rodgers and others who care about this issue to ensure that we continue to move in the right direction.
TDR: Speaking of President Wright, in his 2004 Convocation Address he stated, “Academic communities at their best are places that challenge more than they reinforce.” Can President Wright accept being challenged, or was he only speaking of undergraduates?
Smith: From the context of that speech it seems like he was talking about students, but I can tell you from experience during this campaign that he doesn’t welcome being challenged. I’ve praised the administration in some respects and had some criticisms of the administration in other respects, and, without fail, President Wright’s position is that anything that is critical of the administration is wrong. That basically you’re attacking the College, and him personally, if you say anything critical. I think that’s unfortunate that he takes that view. Criticizing doesn’t mean you’re attacking the College or an administrator, and it doesn’t mean that you are disloyal to Dartmouth.
I think that the ultimate form of loyalty to Dartmouth is loving it so much that you are willing to criticize it, to say that we can do better in certain areas, and to try to work to make that happen. It’s not loyalty or love to Dartmouth to pretend, against the facts, that everything is perfect. So I hope that President Wright and the administration will be open to being challenged just as they exhort the students to be. An honest dialogue about the state of the College benefits Dartmouth and cannot harm it. We are a stronger institution when we have an open and frank dialogue about what our educational mission ought to be.
TDR: The administration has been more involved with this trustee election than any other, especially with the new section of the official College web site, “Ask Dartmouth.” Is it right for them to be so involved or should trustee elections be left to alumni?
Smith: The elections should be left to alumni because one of the things that distinguishes Dartmouth from other schools is that as alumni we have a substantial say in who sits on the Board of Trustees. The administration gets to pick half of the board; the charter trustees are basically picked by the administration, and so it already picks half of the board on its own. What justification is there for the College administration to try to exert control of the half of the Board elected by alums? I see none.
A campaign should be a contest between candidates who will themselves debate the issues. If I say something that is incorrect, that should be something that one of the other candidates points out. That’s how elections work.
Instead, the College has thrust itself into the race as a kind of truth police, but it’s really not truth police because all the site—and I think anybody who looks at that website or the mailings that the college has done in support of that web site will agree—is propaganda, propaganda directed at no one but me. When it’s called “Ask Dartmouth,” the real domain name ought to be “Ask Dartmouth if Stephen Smith is Lying,” and—surprise, surprise—the answer is always “yes” because anything that challenges the College or the Wright administration is said to be a lie.
Alumni are smart enough to recognize that. They see what the College is doing. They see this unprecedented level of interference in the trustee race. I think they will discount a last-minute barrage of statistics from the administration. After all, the administration isn’t exactly the most impartial judge of whether criticisms of the administration are valid. One might reasonably question its impartiality. I also think, when College funds are stretched, the administration shouldn’t be spending College money on politicking.
Their strategy will only backfire. The College assumes that Dartmouth alumni are stupid, and that Dartmouth alumni, when buried in a barrage of last minute statistics suggesting that everything is OK, will cower in fear and say, “Well, jeez, Smith must be lying.” And that’s not what I’m hearing from alums; I’m hearing the opposite.
TDR: Last Tuesday, John Wolf, a fellow trustee candidate, published an Op-ed in The Dartmouth once again raising an issue that has been a repeated point of attack against you, namely, the source of your funding. Is this a fair argument since the other three candidates have the administration helping them, and is it spurious for the other trustee candidates to say that your campaign must be dishonest and dirty because it is getting money from outside the administration?
Smith: I would be less generous than you were. It is blatant hypocrisy on their part. First of all, my opponents are all millionaires, so they can fund their own campaigns if they care to do so, but the larger point is that they don’t even have to do that because the Alumni Council is out there doing everything they can to elect them and defeat me, and the College administration is spending College money and administrator’s time campaigning and politicking for them.
Consider for example the six- or seven-page letter that President Wright wrote. It went to all members of the Dartmouth Community: all the alums, all the students, all the faculty. That’s an incredibly expensive mailing. Then he says in there that he pledges to correct the record and that “I’m not aiming this at anyone in particular, but class sizes are smaller, and we have free speech on the campus—” it’s a point by point rebuttal of everything that I’ve been saying. That’s a very expensive piece of political propaganda that the administration is funding and sending for the endorsed candidates. They benefit from all sorts of official funding from the College and the glowing coverage they get in College publications, and I’m denied all of that as an independent.
So, as an independent candidate, I have no choice but to reach out—not being a millionaire myself and not being granted the benefit of the College politicking on my behalf. I have no choice but to articulate a reform agenda that will appeal to a broad base of alumni and that will garner their financial support. It’s funny that they say that this is somehow nefarious.
This is how campaigns are run! Hillary Clinton is taking money from lots of people who agree with her on the issues. Does that mean that she’s funded by a cabal? No, it just means there are people who agree with her and are willing to contribute to her campaign. That’s just how campaigns are funded—and that’s all I’ve done. I’ve not taken money from any outside sources; I’ve taken money from individual Dartmouth alumni who agree with where I stand on the issues and who understand as I do that the only way that you get change at Dartmouth is to have independent trustees who are willing to question the status quo and to stand up for what makes Dartmouth distinctive and superior as compared to its peers.
This ties into the free speech issue, too, because contributing to candidates you support is a speech issue. For them to suggest it’s something nefarious tells me that they don’t understand free speech, and it also tells me they don’t hold our fellow alumni in terribly high regard. If anyone who contributes to my campaign is a member of a cabal, then what does that say about the thousands of alums who have either contributed to my campaign or signed my petition to get me on the ballot?
Again, I think it’s revealing that they won’t talk about real issues like class size, athletics, freedom of speech; they won’t criticize the administration, and, in a way, they won’t criticize each other. All they find worth talking about is speculating about supposedly conservative conspiracies that just don’t exist. They just keep making these baseless claims because that’s the only leg they have to stand on in this race. I have full confidence in alumni to see past this charade and this attempt to pervert the issues.
TDR: One last question about the administration. Sandy Alderson, one of your opponents, regularly touts his closeness to President Wright as an asset. Is it, indeed, an asset for a trustee to be close to the President or a drawback?
Smith: I think it’s a drawback because the Board of Trustees is not a cheerleading section for the administration, or at least it shouldn’t be. The Board of Trustees is supposed to exercise actual stewardship over the administration, over the College, to question the administration, to make sure the administrations priorities are correct and in the best interest of Dartmouth. You can’t do that if your main reason for getting involved with the College is friendship with President Wright, and Sandy Alderson has been very explicit that the reason he has gotten back involved with the College was his friendship with President Wright and the great respect he has for President Wright.
I just don’t think someone who will bend over backwards to defer to President Wright or rubberstamp President Wright’s decisions is what we need on the Board of Trustees. Nor do we need the polar opposite, and I would not be an automatic ‘no’ against President Wright.
I have enormous respect for President Wright. He was a professor of mine in the History Department many years ago. I like him personally, and I would enjoy the opportunity to work with him on the Board of Trustees, but my guiding principle would not be friendship for Jim Wright or anybody else. My guiding principle would be love for Dartmouth.
We need trustees who are willing to ask the hard questions, who are willing to give the administration the respectful consideration it deserves, but ultimately to make an independent judgment about what is right for the College. I think I’ve shown my willingness to do that over the course of this campaign. I’ve supported the administration when I think it’s right, and I’ve criticized it when I think it’s wrong. That’s what we need on the Board of Trustees.
TDR: Returning to some of the planks in your platform, can you tell me about your concern for student life at Dartmouth?
Smith: Student life is historically an important part of the School’s mission. It wasn’t just something we tolerated: student life was part and parcel of the educational mission because the educational mission was not just producing intelligent graduates but producing intelligent, well-rounded graduates with the skills—including the social skills—necessary to succeed in life after Hanover. Social life is one of the strongest aspects of Dartmouth. Lots of schools have great academics. One of the things that differentiated Dartmouth, historically, from other schools was not only its being a great school, a place where you would have great professors and be able to learn from them in a small environment, but also its strong sense of community.
This is one area where I agree with and applaud the Wright administration. I think that we need to have alternatives to the Greek system. Not everybody wants to be a member of a fraternity or a sorority, and so it makes perfect sense to have social alternatives, but where I disagree with them is that we need to recognize that the Greek system itself is a valid social alternative, and it shouldn’t be treated with hostility, and it shouldn’t be overregulated or regulated in a very heavy-handed way. I would like to see a more explicit recognition of the value of fraternities and sororities as a legitimate social alternative.
I would also like to see us take athletics seriously once again. Many students develop the values of teamwork, hard work, and dedication to a common cause. These things are valued in endeavors after College. We reward excellence at Dartmouth for other things, why wouldn’t we reward excellence in athletics?
Think about the plight of the swim team for example. They seem to be getting nothing but resistance from the administration. I think that is out of step with the College’s traditional values. The swim team needs to have better resources to be competitive at its swim meets and to attract good swimmers to Dartmouth, and they ought to have this support. I don’t know why it’s acceptable to reward the football team with new facilities and let the swim team have the worst facilities in the Ivy League. That doesn’t strike me as fair.
I think women’s sports need to be valued and supported financially just as much as the marquee men’s sports: football and basketball. We need to recognize that athletics is an important part of the Dartmouth experience. Karl Furstenberg was exactly wrong when he said that football has no place at a school like Dartmouth; it has a vital place at a school like Dartmouth, as do other sports. We need to respect that not just with funding but also at the admissions stage. When coaches come to the admissions office asking for help in admitting academically qualified recruits.
TDR: One concern many students have is the progress being made in reforming the Committee on Standards. What is your position both on the reform and its failure to be considered?
Smith: I think COS Reform is essential. I commend the Student Assembly; they recognized a problem that many well-intentioned students have: they are fearful that their time at college can be ruined as the result of an unjust COS hearing. The Student Assembly’s Task Force did a great job in my judgment of coming up with ways to make the process fairer to students who find themselves dragged before the COS. I think the concern with this issue is especially timely given how aggressively the Wright Administration in recent years has been using the disciplinary process, even for fairly trivial infractions such as social drinking on campus.
So I think the process went exactly the way it should until it got to Dean Nelson’s office, and he responded in a way that I think was unfortunate and wrong. Instead of taking the matter seriously and saying we should open a review of this matter immediately, he basically patted the students on the head and sent them away, saying “Well, we’ll get to it when we get to it.” What he specifically said was, that he would recommend that his successor as Dean of the College should consider taking up this issue.
That doesn’t give students the respect they deserve. Given the seriousness of the issues that were raised, the only proper step for Dean Nelson to take was to open a review immediately. The reason you have an Acting Dean is so important matters, like COS Reform in my judgment, don’t have to wait until the hiring of the successor. They can be dealt with now, and even if he didn’t feel comfortable with making the final decision there was absolutely no reason not to start an internal review so that whomever the next Dean of the College may be would have a leg up in making the decision whether to reform the COS procedures. I think, truth be told, Dean Nelson is just a fan of the status quo. He wrote in his letter to the chair of the COS taskforce that the current procedures already receive accolades from professional associations and people at other institutions. My suspicion is that is what he is really concerned about, he thinks the process is fine the way it is and has resorted to this delay tactic, to what I call “telling the students to shut up and graduate.” All but one of the members of the COS Taskforce are seniors who will be graduating in a few short months. I guess the hope is that after they graduate this issue will die down. But it won’t die down if I am elected because it’s too important for these delay tactics to be employed. This has been a perennial concern among students, going back even to my time at the college and before, and the time has come to deal with the issue. It shouldn’t be too much to ask for basic fairness, basic due process for accused students, and that’s all the student taskforce was asking for and I think they should get it. If I’m elected that’s something I will work hard to implement, to implement each and every one of the COS Taskforce’s recommendations.
TDR: Mr. Smith, thank you for your time.
Smith: Sure, thank you very much.