He is the only candidate who has openly criticized the current administration and direction of the College, offering alumni voters a visibly alternative viewpoint from the sitting Board of Trustees.
T.J. Rodgers '70 joined three other trustee candidates to fill the alumni trustee vacancy soon to be left by the retirement of Peter Fahey '68 from the Board in June, but unlike the other candidates, Rodgers was not nominated by the Dartmouth Alumni Council, and instead solicited over 500 signatures by petition to add his name to the trustee slate.
In the past 15 years, with a trustee election averaging annually, only one other petition candidate has surfaced, Director of Alumni Leadership Patricia Fisher said.
Rodgers decided to seek the petition nomination in response to the controversy surrounding the proposed merger of the Dartmouth Alumni Council and Alumni Association, which would have restricted alumni voting rights for alumni trustees from Dartmouth's 62,000 graduates to a few hundred council members.
"Many alumni that I know felt that it was wrong, sort of a dark of the night proposition," Rodgers said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
San Francisco-area alumni convinced Rodgers to seek the nomination in January after the proposed merger failed by a slim margin.
In his personal statement, Rodgers cites three objectives for his trusteeship, namely improving the College through "a stronger curriculum, more open and better governance and better leadership."
Rodgers graduated from Dartmouth in 1970 as the salutatorian of his class, with majors in physics and chemistry. He later earned a masters and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. Then, in 1982, Rodgers founded Cypress Semiconductor Corp. in the heart of what is now Silicon Valley in California. Serving as the company's Chief Executive Officer since then, Cypress has grown into a billion-dollar company publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, with a workforce of 4,100.
In his personal statement, Rodgers wrote that Dartmouth's current leadership lacks a clear vision, as in the case of pursuing diversity in the student body.
"I think a lot of what Dartmouth is doing in the area of diversity is wrong. Creating diversity bureaucracies is the wrong way to go about [diversity]," Rodgers said.
In a question-and-answer dialogue posted on a candidate information website, Rodgers explained that "people who are forced together -- and given mandatory 'diversity' training, as are fraternity members at Dartmouth -- live in a tense society in which every attribute, every nuance of speech is hyper-analyzed in terms of race, gender and sexual preference." In Rodgers' opinion, "this situation cannot possibly be the 'dream' given to us by Martin Luther King."
Rodgers said the most important issues facing Dartmouth in the next five years are the re-establishment of Dartmouth's traditional mission as a liberal arts college, the better fiscal management of a shrinking endowment and the return of free speech to Dartmouth.
"People ought to have differing opinions, say them, and let them be heard -- that's not happening" at Dartmouth, Rodgers said.
Rodgers is also intensely concerned with the Wright administration's flirtation with further expanding the research focus of the College, and believes that open discussion on the issue is overdue.
"The mission of a research university is absolutely antithetical to that of a liberal arts college. Dartmouth cannot be both," he said.
Just last week, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial on Rodgers, profiling his bid for the Dartmouth trusteeship. Describing Rodgers's candidacy as "insurgent," the Journal highlighted Rodgers's stated belief that diversity should be based on merit rather than gender or skin color.
Alumni Leadership director Fisher told The Dartmouth that though Rodgers was not considered by the Alumni Council's nominating process, "he's certainly qualified," and has an equal chance at being elected to the board alongside his opposing candidates. Rodgers added, "I think I will win."
