Along with the rest of the seniors, I will be an alumnus very soon, entering into a new relationship with the College. Trust is the most important aspect of any relationship, and, with this Sunday's special meeting of the Dartmouth Alumni Association, graduates have even less reason to trust those who govern their organization. Many Dartmouth alumni feel alienated from the College, as has been demonstrated time and again in recent years. Three outsider "petition" candidates have been elected to Dartmouth's Board of Trustees. A new constitution was rejected in 2003. Finally, a raging debate has erupted over the proposed merger between the Alumni Association and the Alumni Council. At a time when building trust between alumni and the College is more important than ever, College leaders are damaging the faith in the system that alumni do have.
The Alumni Association has called a special meeting for Feb. 12 to vote upon a key change to its constitution. In order to participate and vote on such measures, alumni must travel to Hanover; no absentee voting is allowed. The proposed amendment would change this requirement, allowing all-media voting so that alumni can vote regardless of their geography. This is a very sensible change that should have been enacted years ago. All-media voting is desperately needed to bring Dartmouth's alumni governance into the twenty-first century. The College has become increasingly diverse and graduates are to be found across the country and around the world. It is absurd to think that alums should have to return to Hanover in order to participate. Considered alone, this change is so obviously needed that it would certainly pass.
However, the catch is that this no-brainer change has been bundled with a highly contentious one: reducing the majority required to amend the constitution from three-fourths to two-thirds. The most immediate consequence of the two-thirds amendment is that it will make the passage of a new constitution -- and the concomitant merger of the Alumni Council and Alumni Association -- easier. In 2003, when a similar constitution was considered, it fell just two votes short of the three-fourths mark.
Whether or not it is a good idea to merge the two alumni governance bodies is an entirely separate question; the issue here is that a hotly contested debate is being squelched through a rule change. The leadership of the Alumni Association is preventing its constituents from deciding separately on all-media voting and the new constitution. Put another way, they are ensuring that support for all-media voting will lead to the success of the two-thirds amendment, thus ensuring that the plan for a merger of the two alumni governance bodies will pass. They are pursuing their agenda by rolling over the opposition and making debate irrelevant.
What does it matter though? How much do the Alumni Council and Alumni Association really affect our daily lives as students? One of the most important functions of the Alumni Association is electing members to the Board of Trustees, the people who fundamentally direct the College. The proposed constitution seriously alters the procedures for electing petition candidates to the Board of Trustees. The nature of these changes is controversial; some alumni believe they are very positive and some maintain that they are extremely detrimental. Regardless of which side is right, there should be fair debate. The Alumni Association has made commendable efforts to involve all perspectives as a plan is made for the merger. However, they have negated all good faith by bundling the two-thirds amendment with the all-media voting measure. They have chosen to ramrod their amendment through, forcing alums to vote with them or vote to keep an archaic voting practice.
Engaging in tricky politics, regardless of the outcome, will only further alienate alumni from the College. The all-media voting provision should be a separate amendment from the two-thirds amendment so that each measure can be evaluated on its own merits. By trusting alumni to openly, separately debate the issues, the Association will consequently earn the trust of alumni. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great."
