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?
I was up there recently myself ... some of the bumper stickers were way liberal. I wondered if instead of a rental I had the NVA-mobile with its Thompson sitckers, it would have been towed or torched. Probably both in either order. Beautiful area and pretty campus.