The Board of Trustees certainly has good manners. When Charter Trustee William Neukom '64 pledged $22 million to the College in March, his fellow Board members forewent the standard thank-you card and instead handed him the chairmanship of the Board of Trustees. While it would be more than presumptuous of us to assume that there was some sort of quid pro quo involved in the swap, we find it difficult to believe that Neukom's generosity -- the largest gift to an academic program in College history -- went unnoticed by his electors.
Issues of transparency are critical to all institutions that hold great power, and it is the responsibility of those in the upper echelons to avoid any appearance of impropriety. When a government official appoints someone to an important public position, we assume that he is not doing so simply because the appointee has donated money to his campaign. Though the analogy is not perfect -- Neukom's gift benefits the entire Dartmouth community after all, and the former Microsoft legal counsel is clearly quite talented -- students, faculty and alumni still ought to feel assured that their new leader was chosen entirely based on his merits.
Then again, maybe it does make sense to award the top spot to the highest bidder. When the Board voted last fall to increase its size from 16 to 22 members, speculation ran high that the move was made for fundraising reasons rather than to increase the Board's diversity. With six new trustee positions to fill in the next decade, perhaps we will be fortunate enough to receive six brand new computing centers -- or at the very least, one of those long-awaited dorms to help the ever-present student housing crunch.
The Board's composition aside, Neukom and his fellow trustees should be commended for recent moves to boost faculty compensation and to renovate the Kresge Fitness Center. An increase of 16 percent in the College's endowment has allowed the Board to focus on rewarding faculty members who excel in what President James Wright called "scholarship, service and teaching." The planned overhaul of Kresge, long since overdue, will send a message to students that their needs are perhaps finally being heard. But the Board should not stop there. With insufficient channels between Board members and the student body, only the most intense lobbying campaigns -- like the Student Assembly's efforts to renovate gym facilities -- have met adequate results. The coming year would be an ideal time for the Board to focus on improving and increasing contact between members and the student body. This is our school after all, and we should be heard.
