Pullout - 6/24/1891: Never Forget
By Emily Esfahani-Smith | Monday, April 21, 2008
This year, the Association of Alumni’s Executive Committee election bears the weight of history and the promise of the future. Upon it hinges the fate and future of the College we know. Specifically, if a majority of the candidates nominated to the executive committee are not petition candidates, the AoA will vote to withdraw the lawsuit (see page E2) to protect alumni rights, as they know them, to be represented in alumni governance. If the executive committee withdraws the suit, then the Board of Trustee’s Governance Report will stand, allowing the 1891 Agreement and its 117 year history and precedent to disappear, as if it never even existed to begin with.
This is why the Review is urging alumni to vote for the petition candidates to the AoA Executive Committee. The AoA is the official voice of alumni to the College, and the only alumni body one hundred percent elected by alumni. The only group of candidates that rise to the level of accountability to alumni are the petition candidates. The officially sanctioned candidates, in addition to whatever else they might do for Dartmouth, will work to withdraw the current lawsuit against the Board of Trustees, and will therefore act against the interests of alumni; this of course gives us pause when considering what else they might do.
In a statement to The Dartmouth Review, the officially slated candidates for the Executive Committee stated, “Unlike our opponents in this election [the petition candidates], we do not believe that litigation is an acceptable vehicle for resolving differences of alumni opinion about college governance.” (See page E5.) This echoes the sentiments of the Chairman of Dartmouth’s Board, Ed Haldeman, and of President Wright. For reasons to question the leadership of Chair Haldeman, see pages 3 and 6 of the Review.
In Spring 2007, when the Governance Committee of the Board of Trustees issued their report that sought to undo the 1891 Agreement, the AoA executive committee was the only group to stand up to the Board. The AoA successfully postponed the Board’s decision until the Fall of 2007, but at that point in September, the Board planned to follow through with the sweeping and draconian changes. The changes included adding eight additional appointed trustees to the Board, causing the proportion of democratically elected trustees to drop from half to a mere third. The Board also usurped the AoA’s right to conduct trustee elections, a protocol that has been in place since 1891, like the parity agreement.
The AoA, at its wits’ end and feeling no alternative, finally took the College and the Board to court to fight against the Board’s flagrant violations of the 1891 Agreement and disregard of the alumni. In taking the College to court, the AoA aimed to protect the alumni right to vote for one half of the trustees on the Board, and the AoA was therefore protecting the interests of alumni. By issuing statements like “we do not believe litigation is an acceptable vehicle for resolving difference of alumni opinion about college governance,” the official candidates to the AoA executive committee will surely work to end the litigation, and thereby end the obvious leverage the litigation affords to the alumni. For this reason above all else, the official candidates, if elected, will not be acting in the best interest of alumni.
On the other hand, the petition candidates wisely endorse the current lawsuit against the College. For instance, Paul Mirengoff, running for Second Vice President, explicitly states his purpose to run as a petition candidate, “I am running mainly to preserve alumni parity with respect to the selection of trustees.” Marian Chambers, running for Secretary-Treasurer, expresses similar distaste with the College’s recent efforts to jeopardize the democratic mechanism of alumni governance: “I voted against [the proposed Constitution of 2006], because it is undemocratic for one group (sitting, appointed Trustees) to expand their turf at the expense of other (alumni approved) Trustees. This used to be called ‘fixing an election’—consult Putin!”
As can be seen by the contrasting statements between the petition candidates and the official candidates, this AoA election is a referendum on the current lawsuit against the Board, just as the victory of petition trustee Stephen Smith was a referendum on the failed Alumni Constitution. In the Spring of 2007, the alumni endorsed Smith as their trustee, expressing the fourth no-confidence vote in the College’s administration and its moribund policies. The AoA election will be the fifth no-confidence vote, if the majority of the open slots on the committee are won by petitioners, as we expect them to be.
One of the members of the petition slate, Bert Boles, is running as an incumbent for First Vice President. He was one of the members of the AoA Executive Committee that filed the lawsuit against the college, and he puts the matter succinctly: “With reluctance, and after repeated efforts to seek another means of resolution, we voted to file a lawsuit to enjoin the Board-packing plan. Now we are once again fighting the stacked odds to retain our seats. If we lose, the Establishment candidates will promptly dismiss the lawsuit, extinguishing the last hope for protecting the hard-won and long-honored governance rights of Dartmouth alumni.”
The only vote the official candidates will receive from The Dartmouth Review is a vote of no confidence. Moreover, our confidence in the administration and its recent attempts to fashion a politburo out of an otherwise democratic process of alumni governance is also shot. The Review is endorsing the petition candidates in this AoA election. The AoA is the sanctioned voice of alumni, and the Review fears that the establishment slate represents yet another group of administration loyalists rubber-stamped by Parkhurst, which has been getting the worst of it from alumni since 2004 in the form of trustee elections.
The all-media voting period runs from April 28 to June 5. We are urging alumni to vote: this election, more than any other, will determine the say alumni have in future alumni governance elections. This may well be the most important election the alumni of Dartmouth will participate in. If you don’t offer your say now, chances are, your opportunity to offer it in the future will diminish. Don’t let the College take your rights away from you: the right to vote according to your conscience foremost among them.
|
