The Board of Trustees has once again denied the Student Assembly's request for student suffrage in Trustee elections, saying nothing new has changed since 1997, the last time the Assembly requested voting rights for students.
In a letter from Trustee Chair Stephen Bosworth '61 to Assembly President Josh Green '00 dated this past Monday, Bosworth explained he felt no reason to believe the Alumni Association, which currently nominates Trustee candidates, had altered their previously-expressed negative assessment of student voting.
Bosworth wrote that the Trustees had found the Alumni Association's arguments against student involvement in the election process "persuasive" in 1997 and "nothing has occurred in the past two years to cause the Board to object now to the Alumni Association's position."
The Assembly passed the resolution once again requesting student voting rights in Trustee elections last November with little debate and only two votes in opposition.
Currently, alumni elect seven of the Board's members and the Trustees themselves elect an additional seven members, called Charter Trustees. The president of the College and the governor of New Hampshire are the two ex-officio Trustees.
While the negative response by the Trustees was not unexpected, the issue was given added emphasis last term after some students felt they should have had a say in the Trustees' decision to drastically alter the social and residential life at the College.
Bosworth alluded to the issue of student involvement in the controversial social life initiative in his letter to Green by saying "the Board unanimously agreed last month that students should play an important role in developing the ideas and proposals that will shape future student life at Dartmouth."
Following the initiative announcement in February, and still not having gotten a response from the Trustees, Green wrote a scathing column in The Dartmouth titled "Hear us, your highness" which strongly argued for a student voice in the election process, comparing College President James Wright with the absolute monarch Louis XIV, the Sun King.
Yesterday, a visibly frustrated Green told The Dartmouth he was not surprised by the negative response but was still hoping for something more positive.
"At the same time when students are wondering how much the College values their input it's unfortunate the decision on this is 'no,'" Green said. "I think there are a lot of students who wonder if it's worth taking the time to voice their opinions and I'm one of them."
Green did say he hopes something will result from an April 15 meeting with Bosworth in which he expects to talk about other ways for students to be involved in the decision-making process.
In 1997, then Assembly President Jon Heavey '97 called a similar suffrage resolution "symbolic" saying he did not expect immediate change. Following that request, Bosworth said the Assembly resolution would require the College Charter to be altered and "there is not much sentiment to go through the arduous process to change the Charter."
Heavey had originally asked for a student to sit on the Board, as is the case at the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University. After he was told that that plan was unfeasible, Heavey switched tactics and started the Assembly on the current drive for suffrage.
