Monday, September 10, 2007
The information machines at work
Now that the Governance Committee—whose members include President James Wright and Chairman of the Board Ed Haldeman—has decided to sidestep 116 years of the College’s governance history and tradition, the PR people at the College are flooding the inboxes of alums with this article, and these two interviews, on which I briefly elaborate below.
Though the majority of the AoA’s executive members have denounced the Governance Committee’s decision to change the Board's size, this article has been sent to Dartmouth alumni stating that all alumni leaders have endorsed the Committee’s decision. In reality, the AoA’s president, William Hutchison, is in the minority of AoA leaders in his support of the Board’s expansion.
In addition, here is a (slanted) interview with Chairman of the Board Ed Haldeman which hits on the following points: the recent change to the Board’s composition, the 1891 agreement, and petition trustees—this interview does not give credit to an interviewer, nor does this one which is a separate interview in podcast form with Haldeman and Christine Bucklin, who chaired the Board's Governance Committee.
Posted by Emily Ghods at 4:00 PM
Comments
Maybe this is explained elsewhere, but how does keeping 8 alumni trustees alter "116 years" of tradition? Didn't the board start giving alumni trusteeships in 1876, literally promise "five" seats in 1891, and give 3 more seats after 1960?
So the preserved general tradition is 131 years old, while "parity" is 46 years old. There can't have been any "parity" until the board had a chance to give alums something other than half the elected seats, which never came up until 1961.
Posted by — September 10, 2007 4:29 PM
Thank you administration for:
launching the SLI bomb on the alumni starting a 10 year forest fire at Dartmouth
dropping donor participation rates to below Princeton and the top colleges (Williams, etc)
dropping us even further during the Freedman/Wright years down the USN&WR ranking to 11 or 12
dropping us behind 15 other schools in endowment and endowment per pupil
dropping us relatively in SAT ranking (even though the scores for all schools have risen with 5x more college applicants to all schools and recalculated verbal scoring)
expanding Dartmouth-Hanover to a sprawling municipality so faculty and administration have a city on the Connecticut river for dining, hospital care, etc. (good-bye small school and those who loved it)
bloating Dartmouth's administration and launching a risky building spree
infiltrating with your corporate PR consultants our alumni apparatus, magazine, email boxes, and even these blog posts
showing your true colors when an African-American petitions onto the board (boo!). Funny timing...
spending at least five million dollars on various corporate campaigns to erode alumni rights only do do away with them anyway.
Never before has a non-alum amassed such power over Dartmouth (always paid (faculty), always paid (President), since, well, Gov. William Plumer.
Congratulations, Jim. William Plumer failed to take over Dartmouth College. Jim Wright succeeded in his takeover in under ten years, remarkably, through the same path: stacking the board. Jim Wright, you've finally made history in your own way. Do something controversial: do something big.
President Wright will no doubt step down from any nominating committee deciding who the next eight trustees will be (no doubt they will be selected by all trustees fairly and democratically, with the most votes, from a list of at least twenty five possibilities).
Shame on alumni leaders who asked the board to limit alumni rights.
Shame on alumni trustees who voted against the parity that brought them to the board.
Shame on charter trustees for breaking faith with alumni now that the college is rich. Have we ever restricted our donations? No. But you restrict our voting rights...
Shame on faculty whose support for their own (President Wright) is a case of inmates (with pay and privileges) wanting power too.
Shame on students whose silence has empowered eight new unelected non-profit billionaires, at the expense of those same students (ahem, nascent alumni): you will quickly be born as alumni, but your thumb sucking docility just lost you your birthright to own half of Dartmouth in trust the minute you graduate.
That independence my stillborn wee little friend is what made you better than the powerless Harvard student who, achieving his degree, owned not one one single determinative share of Harvard.
...
the new topic:
Does Jim Wright have too much power at Dartmouth?
paid employee for 35 years and counting
President and administrative insider for 10+ years, selecting too many trustees, professors, alumni leaders, etc.
stacking the board with 8 new appointments
gaining power from legislature to change charter at will
spending hundreds of millions of the endowment
admitting a decade's worth of students under his rules
Too much power, King James!
Shout out to trustees:
8 Charter Trustees
8 Alumni Trustees
8 Trustee-Pretenders
We risk too much putting all our eggs in Wright's cranial basket.
He has too much power.
Posted by — September 10, 2007 4:48 PM
Emily, one problem we're looking at is that the AoA isn't moving very fast in this PR competition. It isn't that hard to put together a press release. Nobody seems to be acting as the PR contact for the Association, and worse yet, the Association's minimal output is poorly written. This will pay off in continued uninformed and slanted press coverage.
The alumni don't deserve to win if they don't put forth a better effort here.
Posted by — September 10, 2007 4:54 PM
Maybe a part of the AoA problem is that its executives spent all summer trying to work together as a group, including trying to work with minority members like Hutchinson who then runs off unilaterally.
Should they throw procedures for proper process (e.g. having meetings with formal votes and minutes available for alumni review) out the window in order to run faster? Lincoln suspended habeus corpus.
Maybe they should just delegate authority to an individual like Gado to run without committee paralysis, or if he is too controversial, someone else.
Posted by — September 10, 2007 5:48 PM
I think it's time for a few dozen overweight 65-year-olds to take over Parkhurst. Let me know when we charge, so I can call EBA's.
Posted by — September 10, 2007 6:03 PM
Presently ALL the trustees (except President Wright and the Governor of NH) are alumni. My reading of the Governance Committee's report indicates that the trustees expect that the 10 additional trustee position s will be filled by alums: "Expand the Board by Adding More Alumni to Better Meet the Needs of the College."
This suggests that Dartmouth will move from 16 alumni trustees to 26 alumni trustees (until either the president and/or the governor is an alumnus or alumna, at which point ALL the trustees would be alums). Where exactly is the beef?
One might well be forgiven for alleging that Dartmouth has, and will continue to have, the most parochial trustee body this side of Bob Jones University.
Posted by — September 10, 2007 6:06 PM
Sorry, I meant 8 additional trustees. Sometimes my math is bad, I know! The point is still a good one!
Posted by — September 10, 2007 6:15 PM
I was a loyal alum. I've donated every year to the annual fund since I graduated, despite major misgivings about Dartmouth's (lack of) leadership, hoping to help future generations of Dartmouth students enjoy a similarly happy experience. With the petition Trustee movement, had hopes that like-minded Trustees would reach a critical mass on the Board, and that Wright's imminent successor would be a great improvement (a low bar, really).
But the Orwellian press release yesterday changed everything. Dartmouth alumni now have no chance to truly remake the Board and get the College off the path to mediocrity. Instead, their only blunt option is to withhold donations. The damn Trustees have left us no other choice. I can no longer give money in good faith to such a poorly-run institution. I wrote a check to Dartmouth spring of this year; it will be my last.
Posted by — September 10, 2007 6:21 PM
Tom Luxon:
There is a huge difference between trustees who are alumni and having trustees who are elected by alumni. That is the beef!! The report tries to hide this important distinction.
Indeed some claim Dartmouth would be better served if either the Board or alumni nominated some who are not from the College. This is unrelated to the position that alumni are in the best an most appropriate position to chose the trustees.
This entire debacle is clearly a response to cut off the election of future trustees following in the footsteps of the last four.
Posted by — September 10, 2007 8:21 PM
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