Mr. Rogers Goes to Dartmouth
Mr. Rogers Goes to Dartmouth in the Sept.1, 2007 WJS by J. Rago is a must read. It will sound very familiar to those who have followed the election processes at Hamilton, and indeed we wonder of the status of the amendments to the bylaws adopted by the Alumni Council in the Spring of 2006? The college refuses to release them. As to reform oriented trustees separating from the college, regrettably we lead the way.
We’ll try to get the WSJ to let us reproduce the article in whole here. Exerpts follow.
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One of the main criticisms leveled at the petition trustee process is that it is polarizing, divisive and somehow detrimental to the college. Mr. Rodgers replies, “If ‘divisive’ means there are issues and we debate the issues and move forward according to a consensus, then divisive equals democracy, and democracy is good. The alternative, which I fear is what the administration and [Board of Trustees Chairman] Ed Haldeman are after right now, is a politburo — one-party rule.” …
Dartmouth’s establishment then tried to skew the petition trustee process. The details are complex and tedious, but last autumn they cooked up a new alumni constitution that would have “reformed” the way trustees were elected. In practice, it would have stacked the odds, like those in a casino, in favor of the house….
Mr. Rodgers expects to be “severely criticized, unfairly and personally,” for talking to The Journal. He may even be removed from his post entirely. “It’s worth it,” he says. “Doing what is right for the college that I love is more important than holding what is largely a ceremonial position.”
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http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010552
http://www.nas.org/print/pressreleases/hqnas/releas_10sep07.htm
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Dartmouth Votes the Voters Out; NAS Responds
Contact: Stephen H Balch or Peter W. Wood, NAS (609) 683-7878
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PRINCETON, NJ -- 10 September 2007 -- The National Association of Scholars views with alarm the decision by the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees to expand its size from 18 to 26 members and to change its election rules. The actions, advocated by the Dartmouth administration, are intended to dilute the power of democratically elected alumni members of the board and, in effect, to marginalize the College administration’s critics. The new rules also make it easier for the administration’s preferred candidates to be elected by putting obstacles in the way of independent candidates.
NAS Executive Director Peter Wood said, “Borrowing a technique from the Southern segregationists who sought to nullify the black vote in the 1960s, the insider wing of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees has ballooned its number of unelected seats in order to drown out the voices of the elected outsiders. If a party attempted this in the U.S. Congress today it would be recognized as a political dirty trick. If it happened on the board of a major corporation, it would easily be recognized as corrupt self-dealing. But what do we call it when one of the nation’s great colleges manipulates its rules of governance to silence duly-elected critics?”
Peter Wood, the author of Diversity: The Invention of a Concept and a scholar who has written frequently on diversity in higher education, said that Dartmouth’s action goes against the College’s own stated commitment to diversity. Wood said, “Dartmouth College declares itself committed to ‘learning and pluralism’ and says that it ‘accepts and welcomes difference.’ But when Dartmouth’s alumni in free elections for seats on the Board of Trustees elected four individuals who beat the administration’s hand-picked candidates, the administration decided that that was a little too much diversity. The new message is that ‘pluralism’ and ‘difference’ are good for students, but not for Dartmouth’s board.”
“Dartmouth College has been one of a handful of American colleges that has allowed alumni to stand for open election to their boards. Until now, the College has stood out as exceptional in its willingness to take alumni seriously. Most other colleges welcome only those alumni on their boards who agree to play the game, which consists of supporting whatever the administration wants. American higher education has a poor record of self-disclosure and an even worse record of constructive response to thoughtful criticism. As a result, the disconnect between colleges and the educated public is large.”
“Faced with the results of four successive elections in which the independent candidate beat the administration’s hand-picked candidate, the Dartmouth administration clearly had to act. The appropriate action would have been for President James Wright and his compliant chairman of the board, Charles E. Haldeman, to resign their positions. The Dartmouth alumni had, in effect, voted no confidence in their leadership in four consecutive elections. Instead of resigning, however, these individuals conspired to diminish the role of the Dartmouth alumni in governing the College. Their recourse, when faced with serious criticism, was to build a Chinese wall to keep the critics out.”
“Dartmouth College explains its manipulation of the election rules as needed to prevent the kind of divisiveness that ‘would make it difficult to recruit top administrative talent.’ This is an extraordinary claim. Well-functioning boards need independent members who can look skeptically at the institution they serve. Indeed, that is a large part of the message of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in the wake of the corporate scandals at Enron, WorldCom, and other companies, whose boards suffered a fatal lack of curiosity about the behavior of the executives that reported to them.”
“Corporate America woke up to the need for vigilant and responsive boards. Dartmouth’s board-stuffing initiative, however, shows that so far the lesson has been lost on American colleges and universities, many of which prefer not to be bothered by having any genuinely independent voices on their boards.”
“Faced with a board and an administration that have responded to responsible and sober criticism from duly elected board members by jerry-rigging the system against the alumni, I think the Dartmouth alumni would be well advised to explore their options. If possible, they should take a vote of confidence in President Wright. Such a vote would rivet the attention not only of Dartmouth’s too-eager-to-please board, but also of college presidents across the country, who have developed a similar level of disdain for their alumni.”