Dartmouth’s Five New Trustees

By William D. Aubin | Saturday, October 4, 2008

“Five distinguished Dartmouth alumni have been elected to the Dartmouth Board of Trustees. These individuals bring a breadth of skills and perspectives that will further strengthen the Board’s capacity to steward and support Dartmouth’s mission.” So began Ed Haldeman’s letter to the Dartmouth community on September 6. An ordeal that began with the Governance Committee’s decision to increase the amount of appointed Trustees while keeping the amount of alumni-nominated Trustees constant in the summer of 2007 has resulted in an apparent compromise: the addition of five Charter Trustees instead of the originally intended eight. Along the way, the Association of Alumni voted to sue the College to maintain parity, while the College’s motion to dismiss the suit was itself dismissed; then, President James Wright announced his intention to resign in June 2009, and a new slate of Association of Alumni executive board candidates was elected by a solid majority of alumni after that slate promised to dismiss the suit. The heated discussion of the merits of parity versus diversity on the Board of Trustees seems to be moot for the time being. So who are the five new men and women that Haldeman & Co. has decided are the best possible stewards of the College’s mission?

Jeffrey Immelt ‘78, CEO of GE, Harvard M.B.A., and board member of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, seems to coincidentally top the list of every College press release on the subject. Besides his experience as president of Phi Delta Alpha, his role in the unveiling of the delightful-sounding “Ecomagination” program at GE will no doubt interest the sustainability-minded Dartmouth community; the company had evidently been getting some flak for its role as the fourth largest producer of corporate air pollution in the U.S. and for various lawsuits concerning toxic dumping. Hey, NBC went green for a whole week last Earth Day, so I guess they’re making up for it.

Sherri C. Oberg ’82 was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma in her years at the College, and is involved with a whole slew of Dartmouth boards and committees as an alumna. She was president of Dartmouth’s Alumni Council, among other things. It does seem a tad peculiar that her main qualification is being president, CEO, and director of Acusphere, Inc; there’s nothing wrong with pharmaceutical executives, of course, but this particular company’s stock lost more than 97% since 2003, and was recently warned by NASDAQ that it was in danger of being delisted. One hopes that Oberg is a bit better with colleges than pharmaceuticals.

John A. Rich ‘80 also comes to us from the wonderful world of healthcare, and is the chair of the Department of Health Management and Policy at Drexel University’s School of Public Health. He has devoted his life to the study and promotion of public health, with a focus on black men in urban areas. His resume portrays a man who is eminently qualified…but not necessarily for his new job on the Board. His experience, of course, will make the Board much more diverse; the College has never had a public health researcher who focuses on urban issues on its Board before.

Steven Roth ’62 was “a driving force behind the creation of the Roth Center for Jewish Life at Dartmouth,” according to the College’s press release. He has served as a member of the Board of Overseers of Tuck, a member of the Alumni Council, and various fundraising committees. He is chairman and CEO of the Vornado Realty Trust, a New York-based real estate investment trust. His experience managing tens of billions of dollars worth of buildings will come in handy here at the College, where everybody knows that more buildings equals more prestige.

Diana Taylor ’77 is the managing director of Wolfensohn & Company, L.L.C., and former New York State superintendent of banks. She has experience with a variety of high power public and private organizations, including investment banks and various regulatory positions in New York government. Today she is probably best known as the special friend of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. And of course, she has served on some Dartmouth fundraising committees.

So we have five new Trustees, men and women that have proved their caliber in the rough and tumble world of managing, earning, losing, and dating tremendous amounts of money, and one who knows an awful lot about public health. We at The Review are excited that the sitting Trustees picked the five most qualified alumni to manage an undergraduate institution available, and are exceedingly glad that the alumni as a whole weren’t given the chance to screw it up.

Dartmouth’s Five New Trustees

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