As most of us already know, a few members of the beloved Board of Trustees graced us with their presence this past weekend. Among their top priorities while on campus was meeting with students to discuss proposals for implementing their infamous Five Principles for residential and social life. Apparently, the events of the Trustee visit gave new meaning to the word meeting, a meaning that included such things as secrecy and inquisition.
I would have envisioned such a meeting to be students, Trustees and relevant administrators sitting around a large table engaged in an open discussion of Dartmouth's future and all of the proposals concerning it. This would have been appropriate, considering the Dartmouth tradition, at least mythical tradition if not actual tradition, of all members of the community working hand in hand for the improvement of the college. Instead, the meeting was run with a far less personal tone, much like a Congressional hearing. Members of the Committee on the Student Life fired questions at members of our community who spent the last several months trying to come up with ways to mold Dartmouth into the Five Principles' guidelines without sacrificing what we love most about our college. However, unlike Congressional hearings, these meetings were closed to spectators and student press. Trustees even went to the lengths of having a Safety and Security officer outside the meeting room to ensure that no one who was not pre-approved to attend the inquisitions could enter.
This systematic exclusion and secrecy, though contradictory to what most of us envision as Dartmouth tradition, should not have surprised us. Unfortunately, these characteristics have typified all things surrounding the Five Principles, beginning with their imposition on the campus just prior to Winter Carnival. If the Trustees felt as though drastic changes needed to be made to our college, they should have sought student input in drafting the Five Principles.
But beating an issue that died months ago does nothing for student inclusion in current decision-making. Individual Trustees have been rumored to have expressed regret in the way in which the Five Principles were announced from on high, rather than formed from a combination of Trustee, administrator, faculty and student efforts. One would imagine, however, that if the Trustees really regretted the closed-door process that initially characterized the Five Principles, they would not have continued such an exclusive policy. Hell, the whole point of the Five Principles is to make our residential and social system less exclusive! One would think the Trustees should be setting an example for the rest of our community.
But I must attempt to give the Trustees the little bit of credit due to them. There are five students on the Trustees' Committee on Student Life, and a few students were called upon to "testify" in the previous weekend's meetings. Because of the sheer size of our student body, I understand that not even close to all of us could be active participants in such meetings, or even be silent attendees. Therefore, we count upon the student representatives involved in the process to not only represent our views to the Trustees, but also to then report back to us with the information from the meeting. That way, students could share their informed opinions with the student representatives, allowing positive representation to take place. However, while the Trustees did allow us to have student representatives on the committee that would be handling the implementation of the Five Principles, they crippled those representatives' abilities to fulfill their responsibilities to the student body with a confidentiality policy. Trustee Peter Fahey '68, co-Chair of the Committee on Student Life, began the weekend's meetings by reminding everyone that everything said in the meetings was strictly confidential in order to allow everyone there to freely speak his or her mind. This manner of proceeding would have been appropriate for a committee discussing internal business. However, the people in this meeting were discussing a future in which we all have a stake. While we cannot all have equal roles in determining this future because of the sheer size of our community, we must all have access to the information of the proceedings so that we may raise concerns to our student representatives, allowing them, in turn, to truly and effectively represent us.
I am certain that this weekend marked only the beginning and not the end of Trustee meetings with students to discuss the implementation of the Five Principles. The Trustees have made progress in the area of inclusiveness in Five Principle meetings. Hey, after Winter Carnival, they really had no place to go but up. But they have not done enough. The outcomes of these meetings will affect every member of our community. We deserve to know what is discussed in these meetings so that we all have an opportunity to respond to committee members with our concerns. A new Dartmouth will only succeed if the entire community takes some part in forming it. This cannot happen if the Trustees continue their policies of exclusion and secrecy.
