For more than two years, members of the Student Assembly have lobbied for increased student participation in the process by which the members of the College's Board of Trustees are selected.
Currently, the 16-member Board is made up of two ex-officio members -- New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen and College President James Wright -- seven charter Trustees and seven alumni Trustees.
Current members of the Board choose charter Trustees whenever a charter Trustee retires from the position. Currently, all of the charter Trustees are alumni, although graduating from Dartmouth is not a prerequisite.
The remaining seven Trustees -- the alumni Trustees -- must be College alumni, and their selection is based on alumni voting after nomination from the Alumni Council. Once on the Board, there is no difference between the charter and alumni Trustees, and all serve two consecutive five-year terms.
Since the word "alumni" is defined by the Alumni Council as being "anyone who has matriculated at the College whose class has graduated," current students do not have the ability to be elected to a position on the Board or participate in any manner in the selection of the Board members -- a fact which Assembly President Josh Green '00 has strongly criticized since he took office last year.
But Green and Assembly Vice-President Case Dorkey '99 were not the first to deal with this issue. Since Assembly President Jon Heavey '97 took up the crusade in his senior year, Assembly members have fought consistently for a change which would increase the level of student influence over the composition of the Board by either allowing students to vote for alumni Trustees, or creating additional seats on the Board reserved specifically for students.
Heavey originally asked that a student seat on the Board be added -- a change which could be made only by a vote of the current Board.
A graduate and undergraduate representative sit on the University of Pennsylvania's board, while Cornell University's has two representatives. Like at Dartmouth, students at Yale University are currently petitioning for a position of representation.
After Heavey was told the idea of adding a student seat was unfeasible because it would require substantial change in the Board's charter, the Assembly switched tactics and tried instead to gain student suffrage in alumni Trustee elections.
Since all of the more than 50,000 alumni of the College are given a vote in alumni Trustee elections, it is the definition of the Alumni Council's definition of the word "alumni" which prevents students from voting.
The election process
Associate Director of Alumni Relations Patsy Fisher Harris explained the Alumni Council is, among other things, "responsible for putting together the slate of alumni trustees when there is a vacancy on the board for an alumni trustee."
The Council is a representative organization made up of 100 people.
According to Harris, the Alumni Council confirms the three nominations in the Fall of any year in which an alumni trustee will be stepping down, then the Association of Alumni votes via a mailed ballot. Someone who wishes to be on the ballot but is not nominated by the Council can petition by collecting 500 signatures.
Turnout for Trustee elections is high -- at least relative to Dartmouth's peer institutions -- according to Harris, who said in the last election there was about 22-23 percent participation.
The winner of the balloting contest becomes the nominee of the alumni, who is then confirmed by the Board at its spring meeting.
The three-nominee process has been in place since early 90s. Prior to that, the alumni council presented a single candidate.
The first appeal
Heavey appealed to the Alumni Council to change the definition to include current students. Facing imminent rejection again, Heavey reduced his proposal so that it asked for seniors only to be granted suffrage, thinking it would have a better chance at success. The watered-down proposal nonetheless failed.
Upon Heavey's graduation, Green and Dorkey picked up where Heavey left off and continued to push for either a seat on the Board or student suffrage.
The situation remained status quo for a year-and-a-half, until Green was told the Trustees were reviewing the election process. The Assembly requested that students be involved and drew upon their fall resolution that reaffirmed the request for student suffrage in the Trustee election process.
Harris told The Dartmouth yesterday that the Alumni Association has "pretty much declined the change in its constitution."
"They've discussed it and said there are other ways the students can get their message across to the Board than voting on an alumni trustee ballot," Harris said.
Dorkey said yesterday that student involvement on committees and in other areas still limits their ability to exert influence over the Board.
"We brought it to Chairman [Stephen] Bosworth '61, who wrote back and cited existing ways for students to be involved in committees, but those only give access to a limited number of people," Dorkey said. "We also brought it to Alumni Association chair, but they didn't want to pursue this further."
Leaving office
The Board of Trustees reviews and reconfirms a trustee after five years of service. Charter Trustees Andy Sigler '53 and Kate Stith-Cabranes '73 are leaving this year, which means two new charter Trustees will take office in June. The Board will announce their replacements this spring.
The next alumni trustee scheduled to depart is Richard Page '54, who will leave a year from this spring. In the interim, however, the nominating committee of the alumni committee is developing a list of three alumni to present to the Alumni Council at its fall 1999 meeting. Ballots will be mailed in February, and alumni will have until late March to complete them.
For both charter and alumni Trustees there is balloting every 7 out of 10 years, Harris explained. Starting next year with the opening left by Page's retirement, there will be alumni balloting for the next 6 years.
Frustration unfolds
Dissatisfied with the lack student voice and Assembly's powerlessness regarding administrative policies, Green wrote a scathing editorial entitled "Hear us, your highness" which appeared in yesterday's edition of The Dartmouth. The column deified the Trustees and President Wright, equating the latter with absolutist monarch Louis XIV, the Sun-King.
Green's column opened with a sarcastic account of his still unanswered request for a Trustee ruling on the Assembly's most recent resolution calling for students to be active participants in the election process.
"I think the administration is in a difficult position by saying they are not interested in student opinion. By saying 'this is not a referendum' suggests that student's institutional voice is limited at best," Green told The Dartmouth.
Green, who said he wrote the opinionated column because he felt "it's time for students to be heard. I'm tired of waiting," said the column generated considerable discussion. According to Green, responses ranging from an administrator to faculty, alumni and students has been positive. The negative reactions, Green said, "have been 'why didn't you say so earlier,' and I'm beginning to wonder that myself."
"It's time for President Wright to fight for students to have a voice at this College, and so far, he hasn't done that. The good news is that he's focused on student life, but students need to be a part of that process just as much as the administration and faculty," Green said.
Dorkey said the College is limiting the amount students can learn from their college experience by failing to give them sufficient institutional voice.
"By not giving students more institutional influence, the College is failing in a big part of its mission -- to prepare people to be citizens and leaders in the broader community. To do that, there needs to be some trust in students to be participants in decision making," Dorkey said.
