Two vacancies are up for grabs on the Board of Trustees, one of which will be largely decided by a vote of alumni beginning today.
After reviewing hundreds of potential nominees, the Dartmouth Alumni Council nominated a slate of three individuals to fill the alumni trustee seat opening in July 2004, with the retirement of Peter Fahey '68 from the board in June.
The Alumni Council slate includes two educators, Bruce Duthu '80 and Daniel Papp '69, and a corporate executive, Laura Stein '83. A fourth candidate, T.J. Rodgers '70, was made eligible for election by petition.
In a letter sent to alumni in late 2002, the Alumni Council announced the upcoming vacancy and requested suggestions for candidates to replace Fahey in July. The Alumni Council letter identified some of the qualities of a trustee: "intellectual depth and breadth, a commitment to the values of higher education and to Dartmouth and experience on other non-profit boards."
"Considering the needs of the board any given year, the committee selects a slate who meet their criteria, thinking about the long-term needs of Dartmouth," Patricia Fisher, director of alumni leadership, told The Dartmouth. "That's really what trusteeship is all about -- stewarding the long term needs of the College."
In addition to the three candidates nominated by the Alumni Council, T.J. Rodgers '70 gathered the required 500 alumni petition signatures to be added to the slate, sent out earlier this week.
Rodgers, who was not considered by the Alumni Council's nominating committee, seems to style himself as the anti-establishment candidate, and has openly expressed his dissatisfaction with the leadership and direction of the College.
Rodgers founded Cypress Semiconductor as CEO in 1982. Today, Cypress is a billion-dollar publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, employing 4,100 workers. Rodgers is heavily involved in the technology industry and a member of seven boards of Silicon Valley companies. He received his master's degree and Ph.D from Stanford University.
In his personal statement, Rodgers wrote that he is "disturbed" by the unpreparedness of Dartmouth graduates in today's "information society." He said Dartmouth's free-speech code "encroaches on the first-amendment rights of its students," and that a "mandated campus orthodoxy, defended and enforced by expensive overhead bureaucracies such as the Office of Residential Life, limits free speech on campus." Rodgers went on to express dissatisfaction with trustees' limitation on public dissent and the College's current mission statement.
According to Fisher, Rodgers has an equal chance at being elected to the board alongside the Alumni Council's slate of nominees.
The three candidates besides Rodgers have views seemingly more in line with those of sitting trustees. Bruce Duthu '80 is the vice dean for academic affairs and a professor at Vermont Law School. A scholar on Native American issues, Duthu was a religion major at Dartmouth, and later received a degree from Loyola University School of Law.
Duthu was an administrator at Dartmouth in the late 1980s, serving as director of the College's Native American program and later as associate dean of freshmen. Duthu teaches a course on Native Americans and the law at Dartmouth as an adjunct professor.
Daniel Papp '69 is also an educator, currently the senior vice chancellor for academics and fiscal affairs at the University System of Georgia, where he manages 34 colleges and universities. Papp, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Dartmouth, received his Ph.D from the University of Miami. Papp specializes in issues of international security and foreign policy.
"I think the board and nominating committee felt was a lack of people with direct experience currently in academic administration," Fisher said regarding the Alumni Council's slate of academically involved candidates.
The third candidate, Laura Stein '83, is senior vice president and general counsel of H.J. Heinz Company, maker of the famed tomato ketchup. Responsible for Heinz's legal compliance and corporate security matters, Stein is also involved in shaping corporate governance policies and practices. She also serves as director of the Heinz Political Action Committee and as president of Heinz's Global Organization for the Advancement and Leadership of Women . Stein received a J.D. from Harvard University and a master's degree from Dartmouth in 1994.
Fisher said that she has noticed career experience to be a heavier factor than personal background in past decade of trustee elections.
In addition to the election of a new alumni trustee, the trustees will vote in June to appoint a new charter trustee as proposed by the board's nominating committee. Candidates for that appointment will not be subject to any public scrutiny or election. At their June meeting the trustees will also elect a new Chair, to replace outgoing charter trustee and current chair Susan Dentzer '77.
Alumni will vote by either a traditional paper ballot or an electronic vote online on or before April 30. The candidate winning the nomination of alumni will then formally presented to the board for election at their June meeting. That trustee will begin his or her tenure July 1.
The last alumni trustee elected to the board was John Donahoe '82. Twenty percent of the alumni body participated in his nomination in spring of 2002.
Last November, the trustees voted to expand the size of the board from 16 to 22 members. The trustees have not yet committed to the expansion. The new board as assembled for the board's fall meeting will have the traditional membership of 16.
