This Sunday a special meeting of the Association of Alumni is scheduled to consider an amendment to the alumni constitution. Whereas the procedures by which this meeting was called should have met the highest standards of fairness and openness, they have instead suggested a crude power play.
Consider three items.
In his email to alumni dated last month, to name the first, Allen Collins '53, president of the Association of Alumni, described the purpose of this Sunday's meeting misleadingly.
As matters now stand, Collins explained, the constitution may only be amended by alumni who vote in person. The amendment that will be considered on Sunday would eliminate this rule, permitting alumni to vote on any future amendments using "all-media voting" -- that is, voting by mail or over the Internet.
All this is true. But it is not, by any means, the whole truth.
The proposed amendment contains a second provision: It would reduce the threshold for enacting constitutional amendments from three quarters of those voting to two thirds. Although the implications of this second provision are far more dramatic than those of the first -- it would make the constitution, which has served alumni for more than a century, far easier to change -- Collins never mentions it.
Note that there was no reason whatsoever to bundle these two provisions in a single amendment -- except to enact the controversial second provision, the reduced threshold for amending the constitution, under cover. Having described the amendment misleadingly, to name the second item, Collins went on to provide a mistaken, if not disingenuous, rationale. At the October meeting of the Association of Alumni, Collins wrote, "a great many alumni" made clear that they "would like to be able to vote on constitutional amendments without having to attend meetings in person." Not quite. What alumni actually made clear was that they wanted to be able to vote on officers of the Association of Alumni without having to attend meetings in person.
Constitutional amendments? Years sometimes pass between the consideration of such items. But officers are elected every twelve months. And alumni consider it ridiculous to permit such an important body to be selected by the tiny contingent that travels to Hanover. Collins took a legitimate alumni concern, unambiguously expressed, and twisted it.
The third item: the suppression of petition amendments.
Several petition amendments -- that is, amendments that have each received the written support of at least 50 alumni -- have been submitted for consideration this Sunday. Yet Collins and the other members of the Executive Committee of the Association of Alumni have refused to place these petition amendments on the agenda. Why? Because, as Collins wrote in his email, alumni must be given "the opportunity to understand...the issues that will be addressed."
Below, the petition amendments in question.
"Annual meetings of the Association, or any special meeting convened by the executive committee, shall be conducted pursuant to Robert's Rules of Order."
"This constitution may be amended by a three-fourths vote of alumni cast by mail, e-mail, Internet or in person."
"Members need not be present in person to vote at any meeting of the Association or otherwise for any business of the Association."
"The officers of the Association shall be a president, two vice-presidents, secretary-treasurer, and an executive committee of seven members, [all to be elected by all-media voting conducted over a six-week period immediately] prior to each annual meeting upon the nomination of a committee on nominations appointed by the president."
Three amendments, each consisting of a single sentence, and a fourth consisting of just one clause (the words inside the brackets). This is what the alumni of Dartmouth College, an elite institution of higher learning, would have proven unable to grasp?
We express our views here merely as ordinary alumni who have had the occasion to watch recent events in Hanover closely. We do not speak, in other words, for anyone other than ourselves, or in any capacity but that of graduates of the College. Nor do we take a position on either the officially proposed amendment or any of the petition amendments. If the procedures by which the meeting on Sunday was called had been fair and open, we would not be writing this letter.
But those procedures were not fair and open. If the Executive Committee had intended to arouse suspicions of bad faith -- if it had intended to appear interested only in ramming through its own amendment -- then it could hardly have succeeded more richly.
We urge the Executive Committee to postpone this Sunday's meeting -- and then, once it has settled on a new date, to permit the consideration of petition amendments and to notify alumni of the meeting honestly.
