The Ernest Martin Hopkins Institute, a group of 3,000 alumni, has pledged to support the single-sex fraternity and sorority system in the controversy inspired by the landmark social and residential life initiative announced by the Board of Trustees last month.
Chairman of the Institute's Executive Committee Gregory Fossedal '81 said the largely conservative group believe that the College does not need to entirely eliminate its single-sex fraternities and sororities and questions the manner in which the initiative was announced.
"I think most of the alumni I know, and I personally, am especially shocked by the way this was announced," Fossedal said in a telephone interview with The Dartmouth.
"To me it shows that they don't really care what the students or alumni think," Fossedal said of the Trustees and College President James Wright.
The Institute will work chiefly to inform alumni-- through mailings and e-mail-- about the five principles outlined in the Trustees' initiative and how they are being instituted at the College, Fossedal said.
They will also encourage members of the Dartmouth community who object to the principles or their implementation to speak out against them.
Fossedal said he hopes the Institute will form partnerships with students to "try and change this decision process and to reason with the administration about the decision itself."
While Fossedal said it is not the policy of the Institute to encourage people to withhold donations to Dartmouth, it is its policy to encourage people to give money to the College to programs that "support things they believe in."
Fossedal said this issue is the first event to color his opinion of Wright and that he is "very hurt and disappointed" by the way the initiatives were announced.
However, Fossedal said "I tip my hat" to Wright for being honest in saying the initiatives were not a referendum.
Fossedal said that he thinks "the administration made it pretty clear the initiatives are a closed case in their view."
He said the Institute will have to make sure "people with different visions of fairness will have to go about helping Dartmouth in different ways."
The Institute was founded in 1985 by Fossedal, George Champion '25 and Paul Hexter. The Institute describes itself on its webpage as an Alumni Council-recognized association of alumni, but claims no further connection to or support of the policies of Dartmouth College.
In recent years, the Institute has been instrumental in bringing predominantly conservative speakers to the College, including William F. Buckley in 1993 and Dinesh D'Souza '83 in 1995.
Senior Associate William Grace '89 told The Dartmouth in 1995, then as the Institute's executive director, that the group aims "to promote classic liberal education" at Dartmouth.
Past goals of the group have included pushing to adopt a "year-long core curriculum" and to reduce tuition costs by cutting back on administration. The group publishes a newsletter and maintains a web site.
Both Grace and Fossedal served as editors-in-chief of The Dartmouth Review while students at the College.
Fossedal said he was not a member of a single-sex fraternity while he was at the College, but he remains "very grateful to them."
"I had a lot of fun times, I drank a lot of their beer," he said.
