Some background on the Dartmouth story from the Hanover Institute
http://hanoverinstitute.org/news.htm
We are, unfortunately, facing a new threat.
Recently, as reported earlier, the board of trustees announced that it is considering taking away from Dartmouth alumni the 116 year old right to select one-half of the board of trustees.
In a public statement to the Alumni Council on Saturday, May 19, just hours after the election victory of independent petition candidate Stephen Smith, the outgoing Chairman of the Board William Neukom stated that the Governance Committee of the Board were considering changes in the right of alumni to select half the board as Alumni Trustees. He said that the committee had been meeting all year on determining the “appropriate” composition of the Board and the right means to reach that goal.
Then on June 9, the new board chairman Charles Haldeman confirmed his predecessor’s announcement: the 1891 agreement establishing alumni trusteeships would be under review.
Please click here to view a copy of the 1891 agreement and the minutes of the 1891 Association of Alumni meeting.
Mr. Haldeman’s first public statement reads, in part: “the Governance Committee of the Board this summer will review the composition of the Board and the process of trustee selection.”
Any plan that alters, dilutes or tampers with the alumnis ancient privilege is harmful to Dartmouth College and simply unacceptable to the vast majority of Dartmouth alumni.
Here is what you can do to help:
Please send your comments to the Governance Committee of the board of trustees.
Administration seeks to block Dartmouth Association of Alumni leaders from communicating with their members.
NEWS FLASH
Hanover, July 6 —
The Wright administration has sought to block the newly elected leaders of the Association of Alumni, from speaking to Dartmouth alumni, their constituents, about a pending proposal to take away the right of alumni to vote for trustee.
Specifically, the administration has denied the Associations Executive Committee access to the Association mailing lists and has refused to release to them the funding allocated for their communications with alumni. In light of the urgency of the matter at hand, they were forced to obtain a mailing list and funding for their critical message from other sources.
We urge the new leaders of the Association to take whatever action is necessary and proper to obtain their mailing lists. In addition we urge them to open a bank account for the Association and to start raising funds necessary to fulfill its responsibilities to Dartmouth alumni and to the College.
Please see the letter from David Spalding, Vice President of Alumni Affairs.
Update: May 31st. 2007
On May 19, Dartmouth Trustee Chairman William Neukom made some very troubling statements to the meeting of Dartmouths Alumni Council.
I reported on that event in more detail in a May 28 communication to alumni (below).
On May 30, The Dartmouth ran a front page story on Neukoms statements.
Now, the Association of Alumni of Dartmouth College has acted.
In response to the refusal of Dartmouth Trustee Chairman William Neukom to commit to respecting the 1891 agreement between the board and alumni, the newly elected Association of Alumni leaders, in 10 to 1 vote, have approved and sent to the Board of Trustees this statement.
In addition, I have included an introduction to that statement written by six of the eleven members of the committee.
This action in defense of Dartmouth and her alumni s unique partnership has occurred only because of the election, almost two weeks ago, of independent alumni leaders.
MacGovern Report on Neukom Statement
May 28, 2007
Important and troubling news
Reports are just now leaking about troubling statements made by the Chairman of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees, William Neukom, pertaining to vital and cherished alumni rights.
In a public statement to the Alumni Council on Saturday, May 19, hours after the election victory of petition candidate Stephen Smith, Chairman Neukom reported that the Governance Committee of the Board is considering changes in the historic right of alumni to select half the Board of Trustees. Neukom revealed that the committee had been meeting all year to determine the appropriate composition of the Board and the right means to reach that composition. Furthermore, he stated that the results of these deliberations will be presented to the Board at their meeting in June.
Immediately following these remarks, Dartmouth alumnus Joseph Asch 79 asked Neukom if he would give assurance to the Alumni Council that the numerical parity between alumni and charter trustees would not be affected. Neukom answered evasively, and Asch repeated his question, emphasizing again the critical significance of numerical balance between the two classes of trustees. Again Neukom prevaricated, impatiently replying: I said the Board is keeping all options open.
In 1891 the Association of Alumni of Dartmouth College, after decades of negotiation with the Board of Trustees, won the right, by agreement with the Board, to select half of the trustees. For 116 years this close governance partnership has provided great benefit to Dartmouth and has contributed significantly to the legendary loyalty of alumni to the College.
It would appear that a small cabal of Dartmouth trustees, as a result of four consecutive defeats of their preferred candidates, is seeking to change the rules, resulting in a significant dilution in the traditional right of our alumni to select half the Board of Trustees.
Loyal Dartmouth alumni urge our newly elected Association of Alumni leaders to make it resoundingly clear to Dartmouths Trustees that Dartmouth alumni are vehemently opposed to any action that would dilute or undermine this important right of all alumni to select one half of the Board of Trustees, and, will take all actions necessary to protect that traditional right.
We urge the Board of Trustees to bring all sub rosa discussions, deliberations and votes on this matter into the light of day. Such a disclosure enables Dartmouth, its graduates and undergraduates, to share in the important deliberations about the institutions future governance. Any failure in this task is degrading to the institution, to students and alumni, and most of all to those trustees who may be engaged in secret discussions to preserve their entrenched and self-interested control over one of the great and free educational institutions in America.
Dartmouth College alumni who support reform and democracy won decisively in the two elections held between April 1 and May 15, 2007.
As I reported to you, Stephen Smith88 won the election for a seat on Dartmouths Board of Trustees. In each of the last 4 elections, independent petition candidates have been chosen by alumni, while the establishment candidates, with the full support of the administration, have been defeated.
In the historic election for new leadership for the Association of Alumni of Dartmouth College, seven of the eleven seats on the Executive Committee were won by alumni not endorsed by the establishment leaders but who, rather, earned their place on the ballot by petition and were committed to specific reforms leading to more transparency, democracy and fair play.
Another win; 7 of 11
Report on the Association of Alumni election/meeting of May 19, 2007.
For most of us the election for Association leadership ended at midnight on Tuesday, May 15; but any alum who did not vote was allowed to vote in person at the Association meeting held today(Saturday) in Alumni Hall at Dartmouth College.
The results have now been tabulated; seven of the eleven seats went to petition candidates; four went to officially nominated candidates.
This is a big win for reform and for the preservation of alumni rights. It was the first election where all alumni could vote whether they were in Hanover or not. Nearly 17,000 voted as opposed to 200, or at most 350, in the past.
Truly, this executive committee are the duly elected representatives of the 65,000 Dartmouth alumni, an important fact to remember as they conduct the election of one half of Dartmouths board of trustees.
The following alumni were elected to the eleven seats on the Executive Committee of the Association of Alumni of Dartmouth College.
President: Bill Hutchinson ‘76
First Vice President: Kate Aiken ‘92
Second Vice President: Frank Gado 58, Petition candidate
Secretary/Treasurer: David Spalding ‘76
Executive Committee Members:
Marjory Grant Ross 81, Petition candidate
Cheryl Bascomb ‘82
Martin R. Boles 80, Petition candidate
Timothy A. Dreisbach 71, Petition candidate
David S. Gale 00, Petition candidate
Alexander X. Mooney 93, Petition candidate
Kathryn Flitner Wallop 80, Petition candidate
Here is a breakdown of the votes.
We should all be proud of this day and this election. Thanks to your persistent, unwavering and wise efforts, all Dartmouth alumni had the very first opportunity ever to vote, without being required to come to Hanover, for their representatives who may have an influence on the future directions of the College.
Congratulations.
UPDATE ON 2007 TRUSTEE ELECTION RESULTS
MAY 16, 2007
I have great news to report.
Stephen Smith88, stellar independent petition candidate, was elected to Dartmouths Board of Trustees with 55 percent of alumni voting for him, decisively defeating the three nominees of the Alumni Council: Richard Sandy Alderson, Carol Oberg and John Wolf.
18,603 alumni voted in the election, roughly three thousand more than in the 2005 trustee election. Of that number, nearly 10,000 voted for Professor Smith.
The three official candidates were outstanding candidates. They are to be commended for offering to run for trustee. They are all accomplished individuals and a credit to Dartmouth, as was the vote of alumni for Stephen Smith.
Smith ran a race on issues, not personalities. And Dartmouth alumni made their selection based on those issues.
Professor Smiths win is a great victory for the Dartmouth College and for reform.
Many thanks to all of you for your efforts, your energy and your devotion to Dartmouth.
Report on February 12, 2006 Special Meeting
At the special meeting of the Association in Hanover on February 12, 2006, the Constitution of the Association was successfully amended to make it easier for the small group currently in control, backed by the administration, to pass their proposed new constitution and ultimately to better control future Dartmouth trustee elections.
The vote in the room on the executive committee amendment broke down as follows: 198 votes were cast for the administration-backed amendment, and 32 votes against it. More than 450 proxy votes against the amendment and for alternative amendments were not counted.
Once again, as with all the recent Association meetings, whether of December 2002, December 2003, September 18, 2004, or October 2005, we had to play against a stacked deck. This time the leaders of the so-called Affiliated Groups (societies organized on the basis of sexual practices or minority racial identification) were staying in Hanover as guests of the College administration—some even had their transportation paid for by the administration. The Affiliated Groups were awarded seats on the Alumni Council in the 1990’s. Not incidentally, the AGTF constitution for which the amendment paves the way doubles the number of representatives from these Affiliated Groups in the new, merged alumni governing body. The Executive Committee has openly admitted that the February 12 date of the meeting was chosen to coincide with the Affiliated Group gathering.
As had happened at the meeting on October 23, 2005, the president of the Association, Allen Collins, ruled that only alumni who had physically entered the room could vote—though they could leave their ballots and were not required to stay through the discussion. He excluded hundreds of proxy votes submitted by loyal Dartmouth alumni from all across the country. The meeting had been set for a date in the depth of winter, and the weather did not disappoint: a major storm pounded the East Coast, and heavy snow made for treacherous travel throughout New England. Many alumni who might otherwise have come understandably stayed home. As a result, a mere 230 alumni (a large portion of whom consisted of Affiliated Group guests and local alumni employed by the College) made a fundamental decision for over 60,000. Should unwarranted restrictions imposed by a self-selecting, self-serving 11-member Executive Committee allow four-tenths of one percent of the alumni represent the will and interests of all?
There was NO voting on rank and file members alternate proposals because “Guidelines” issued by this same executive committee imposed a four-month notice requirement three months before the meeting. Lewis Carroll could not have invented a more outrageous device in his Alice in Wonderland! When we asked the committee to waive that filing deadline, as its own guideline specifically allows, [it not only refused but claimed it was required to follow the rules!
But even that was not enough for this Executive Committee. In violation of logic and all parliamentary rules of order, NO amendments were allowed from the floor. None! The Chair said there were no rules, only his rules. And so, the only choice was to vote Yes or No—no matter how strongly one may have objected to any of the three provisions in the amendment. The behavior of the Executive Committee, and of their supporters packed into Spalding Auditorium who tried to drown out speakers with handclapping, was reminiscent of a Bayonne, New Jersey, Teamsters Union Local on one of its less democratic days. Tony Pro had nothing on Al Collins.
Update Report on the Lawsuit (March, 2006)
Since 2001, all our repeated efforts to have Association leaders allow absentee voting for the election of officers have been rejected.
At the Association of Alumni annual meeting in October 2005, two slates of candidates sought election to the Executive Committee of the Association: one slate hand-picked and backed by the incumbent Executive Committee and the second slate backed by rank-and-file alumni and placed on the agenda by petition.
I collected more than 420 proxies and attempted to vote them at the October meeting. These 420 proxies from Dartmouth College alumni from diverse parts of the US and foreign countries were not counted. Consequently, the election had the same result as the one that had put Walters’s slate in office: the slate created by the Executive Committee was “elected.”
I decided to protest this year’s round of being forced to play against a stacked deck.
One important reason: this year a new constitution is being proposed by the Alumni Governance Task Force (AGTF), and its ally, the Executive Committee that will curtail our rights dramatically. A key feature of the new AGTF constitution is its change of the rules for the election of Alumni Trustee—the very rules that resulted in the successful bids of petition candidates T.J. Rodgers last year and Peter Robinson and Todd Zywicki this year.
Unwilling to acquiesce to an illegally-installed Executive Committee and watch while it finesses a new constitution that will further skew alumni governance and impede the expression of alumni in their selection of Dartmouth’s trustees, I have, with great reluctance, begun the process of obtaining legal remedy through the courts.
To that end, in November 2005, I filed suit against the Association in New Hampshire Superior Court, seeking to have the proxies counted. As yet, contrary to what you may have been led to believe, that case has not been heard.
Within days of their sham election, the new Executive Committee called the February 12, 2006 special meeting specifically to amend the present constitution so as to make it much easier to ratify its replacement.
I again went to court, this time seeking a Temporary Restraining Order to direct that proxies be counted. On February 10, the judge denied this request. He denied my request, solely “by focusing on whether the petitioner has demonstrated a likelihood of success on the underlying merits of his claim.” In other words, he was saying that it was not an open and shut case.
When Allen Collins announced from the podium on February 12 that the judge had ruled against counting proxy votes, that statement was false. The court has NOT ordered that proxy votes should not be accepted, as Collins implied. (We await the audio recording of the meeting so that we might quote Collins’s exact words.)
No decision has been reached, indeed no hearing has been held, on the underlying case on the 420 proxies that were rejected in the election of Association officers at the October 23, 2005 meeting.
Union Leader - Editorial
October 24, 2005
Sham election in Hanover
Less than two weeks ago, a Superior Court judge upheld the New Hampshire law that allows the victorious party in the previous election to have its candidates listed atop the next ballot. If you think that law creates an unfair advantage for incumbents, get a load of the rules governing the election of Dartmouth Colleges alumni association executive committee.
Dartmouth alumni are eligible to vote for executive committee candidates with one caveat. To vote, you have to come to Hanover and do it in person.
The restriction ensures that alumni who stick around Hanover grad students, professors and others who settle within easy driving distance get to vote, while those who move out of New England will find it much harder to cast a ballot. It also ensures that a tiny percentage of alumni predominantly, those physically tied to the campus (and likely, to the administration) actually get to vote for alumni association officers.
A slate of petition candidates ran for election to the executive committee this year, pledging to change the rule so that all alumni could vote. Not surprisingly, the Hanover area alumni yesterday voted down the candidates who pledged to dilute their power.
The issue of the alumni associations rules was the latest in a string of controversies involving alumni upset at the Dartmouth administration. This spring, in what was called the Lone Pine Revolution, two conservative academics ran as petition candidates to the board of trustees and were elected. In response, the administration proposed changing election rules to make it harder for petition candidates to win.
Funny thing. Where are the campus activists who are always running around advocating speaking truth to power? You dont hear a lot of left-wingers crying about the powerful oppressing the weak, or the well-connected rigging the system to keep out the outsiders, when the powerful and well-connected are left-wing academics and university administrators.
What can the powers-that-be at Dartmouth find so frightening about a few independent-minded alumni who would like to have a say in running of the college that they feel compelled to rig the system to keep them out? Couldnt they just campaign against them and let the voters decide?
What would Max Payne have to say about this?
My understanding is that alumni-nominated members of the Board of Trustees were pushing for higher quality undergraduate education. Ed Haldemann isn't interested in that and so he just engaged in "stacking the court" so that the troublesome alumni-nominated members of the Board of Trustees can more easily be outvoted.
I'm hoping alumni donations slow down as a result.
My initial impression upon reading this report is that Ed Haldeman is at best being disingenuous. It appears that he is trying to dilute the power of the alumni to have a voice in the governance of Dartmouth by diluting the percentage of alumni-nominated trustees on the board. Expanding the board by putting "hand-picked" alumni on the board was perhaps a clever ruse, but it's one that would only fool a true believer. It will not withstand even the slightest amount of critical scrutiny.
For him to claim that such an action "preserve(s) alumni democracy at Dartmouth" is, frankly, Orwellian. Does he really believe that intelligent people will fall for his transparent con job? He's proposing the equivalent of the old "thumb on the scale" trick, but he's trying to get away with it by doing it in plain sight, hoping that nobody except "the usual suspects" will notice the deception.
Given the divisiveness of recent elections we did not believe that having more elections would be good for Dartmouth.
Spoken like a true, um, tyrant. The sentiment is truly inspired - by Stalin, Mugabe, and their ilk.
But some of the recent rhetoric in this debate has become so harsh and divisive it is now doing harm to Dartmouth.
What a monumentally foolish statement. Does Haldeman have any conception of how much damage a heavy-handed move like this one is going to have on Dartmouth's reputation worldwide?
So - how about a summary for those who haven’t?
bump
Is Daniel Webster still practicing law? Sounds like the alumni need to go hire him.
The shape of things to come.
I thought this might interest you.