As the November presidential election approaches, Dartmouth employees have dug deep for the Kerry-Edwards campaign.
Forty-five Dartmouth faculty members and administrators have donated a total of $30,500 to Sen. John Kerry since January 2004. In the same period of time, just one College employee has sponsored the Bush campaign, according to data from the Federal Election Commission.
Contributions followed clear departmental patterns among those supporting Kerry. Faculty from Dartmouth Medical School donated an unmatched $9,400, accounting for 30 percent of all Dartmouth donations. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center employees donated $5,000.
The English department contributed the third-highest amount of money to Kerry with $4,300 from professors James Heffernan, Jonna Mackin and Brenda Silver. Three faculty members from the Tuck Business School donated a total of $3250. Computer science and Thayer School professors were both responsible for about 10 percent of all faculty donations. Dartmouth administrators added $1,650.
In addition, one professor in each of the art, classics and physics departments made donations.
The data also showed a large gender difference. Although total monetary donations from males and females were approximately equal, only 34 percent of the contributors were women.
Kerry supporters gave many reasons for their donations, including wanting to prevent a second Bush term and faith in Kerry's honesty and capability. Others cited a change in federal funding trends for research as a reason for their support.
Engineering professor Catharine Lamm said her vote for Kerry stems from Bush's disinclination to under fund engineering research that is unrelated to building weapons.
"Engineering has a certain amount of intellectual capital and resources," Lamm said. "Building new weapons takes resources away from what I consider to be more beneficial research."
Daryl Erickson, an OB-GYN at DHMC-Nashua, was the only Dartmouth-employed contributor to the Bush campaign. Erickson, who contributed $500, was unavailable for comment on Friday and over the weekend.
The number of donations this year was low compared to previous years. Last year, Dartmouth College was the fifth highest university contributor to the Howard Dean presidential campaign. According to FEC figures already released, most of last year's Dean supporters did not donate to Kerry in 2004.
