Last Wednesday marked the arrival in Hanover of the newest members of the Dartmouth Community -- the Class of 2001. As the members of the first class of students which will actually graduate in the next millennium swarmed over the Hanover Plain, they unknowingly became the latest in the lineage of Dartmouth students who were and are completely unenfranchised in the decision-making process which governs the College.
That's right, as Chairman Bosworth, the rest of the Trustees, and President Freedman have noted to us time and time again, the Classes of 1998 through 2001, while they may be "the most talented classes ever admitted to Dartmouth," are not qualified nor competent to even vote in the elections for Dartmouth Trustees, let alone serve on the Board themselves. No matter what students at many of our sister institutions of the Ivy League possess such a vote, and in one case (Cornell) two permanent voting student seats, Dartmouth students, talented as President Freedman keeps reminding us that we are, are absolutely unable to shoulder the burdens of examining the present state of the College and planning for its future.
When the New York State Education Department released its New Compact for Learning some six or seven years ago, it included in its reform program the mandate that all public schools in the state modify their decision-making systems in such a manner as to include and enfranchise all stakeholder groups, including students. That this reform mandate from New York's leading educational minds was for high schools and younger and for all public schools (read "non-student- selective") leads me to the conclusion that students at a highly selective college are at least as qualified to participate in such processes and stand to learn and benefit at least as much. If every high school student in New York State is qualified to actively participate in policy decisions, surely the "most talented class in Dartmouth's history" and its immediate predecessors are equally so.
Last Winter and Spring, Student Assembly President Jon Heavey '97 raised before the Trustees the question of why Dartmouth's seniors couldn't vote in Trustee elections. After all, he pointed out, those same seniors would be given that privilege a mere year later.
The Trustees responded in kind that no such change would be made and asked why Dartmouth's seniors couldn't just wait for a year.
While these facts in and of themselves, in my opinion, should concern every Dartmouth student, the importance of the situation should be even clearer when one considers that the Trustees last year decided, among other things, that the College tuition demanded a certain percentage increase for this year because Dartmouth could not be the least expensive school of the Ivy League. While we should all, I guess, be thankful that our noble alma mater has retained some shred of dignity by charging us more than our fellow Ivy League students, I would venture to guess that many of us might have enjoyed a year in which the tuition increased at a rate which resembled inflation rather than eclipsed it. I guess that demonstrates why I, as a student, am absolutely unqualified to have my say in such decisions.
One might ask those who grip so tightly the reins of Dartmouth why the educational opportunities of exposing students to the operational and financial management of an institution whose endowment tops $1 billion and whose workforce numbers in the thousands have been disregarded. One might ask the Trustees why the inclusion of student votes in their elections would lead to the ruination of our beloved College. One might ask how the inclusion of a voting student or two as trustees would so control decision-making on a board of sixteen members as to leave chaos in its wake.
One might ask such questions indeed in good faith but one should expect answers resembling that of Trustee Susan Dentzer when asked a similar question. She simply replied, "This is not a democracy." Aren't you all as satisfied as I am with her eloquent and informative explanation of why the above arguments aren't valid? So much for the elevated intellectual discourse on which this institution bases its reputation.
