A website recently created by Dartmouth students claims that College officials have been misleading Dartmouth alumni about the student body's satisfaction level over issues such as the proposed changes to the alumni constitution and the recent Senior Executive Committee elections.
Five undergraduates created the site, www.voxclamantisindeserto.org, earlier this month to reach alumni and voice student concerns over issues that they feel have not been adequately presented to Dartmouth students and alumni.
"Unfortunately, many graduated sons and daughters of Dartmouth are under the impression, fostered by the College's public relations department and the Office of Alumni Relations, that all of its undergraduate student body is satisfied with its current state," a statement on the website reads.
The idea for the site came when Nicholas Stork '06 and Andrew Eastman '07 attended a town hall meeting in Boston last March for Dartmouth students and alumni to discuss the alumni constitution. There, Stork and Eastman expressed concern over some of the proposed changes to the constitution and other issues such as the lack of transparency in SEC elections.
They then enlisted the help of three additional students -- Danielle Thomas '07, Emily Ghods-Esfahani '09 and Kat Carmody '09 -- to contribute to the site.
The newly proposed alumni constitution would diminish the number of signatures required for a petition alumni trustee candidate to run, stipulate that petition candidates in alumni trustee elections announce their candidacy before the committee-nominated candidates are announced and change the voting system used to elect trustees. Many supporters of petition candidates have argued that such changes would cripple petition candidates' chances, while supporters of the changes have argued that the proposed process would be more democratic.
In the current process to select the 20-member SEC, 12 seniors are chosen by a classwide election and 8 are selected by a committee composed primarily of administrators, but the results of the election, which members were elected and which were appointed are made public. Critics have said that such secrecy allows the administration to manipulate the committee in its favor.
Currently, the website features a series of editorials concerning these issues as well as a petition for undergraduates to sign in order to voice their opposition to the changes to the constitution.
"We're maintaining this site to give Dartmouth alumni an honest perspective on the state of the College and what it's like to be an undergraduate today," Eastman said. "We want our alumni to be aware of how things are on the ground, not how they appear in public relations or Office of Alumni Relations brochures."
As of early yesterday evening, 56 undergraduates had signed the online petition opposing the proposed changes to the constitution. The website's creators hope that, as word spreads about the website, students and alumni will become more informed about the issues relevant to their alma mater.
Jim Adler '60, a member of the Alumni Governance Task Force, the body which developed the proposed constitution, said he was pleased to see student interest in the new constitution, even if their interest was critical of sections of the proposed changes to the constitution.
"My hope is that the students involved will try to present a range of views, and that care will be taken to make sure 'facts' and 'opinions' are clearly identified, with the 'facts' presented fully, fairly and in proper context," Adler said.
AGTF member Bill Hutchinson '76 adopted a more pessimistic attitude about the contents of the website.
"I worry about their ability to [give alumni a more complete picture of student opinion], especially given that there is only a small cadre of contributors, about which we alumni know nothing, and they seem to be recycling the negativism and rhetoric already found elsewhere," Hutchinson said. "Even more troubling is my sense that, when it comes to alumni affairs, these students may be swallowing and then regurgitating the spin being generated by a small faction of the alumni body."
Ben Waters '06, a member of the SEC, said that the website's focus was inconsistent with what he feels the AGTF is attempting to change in the constitution. Waters has not read a draft of the proposed constitution, but as a member of the SEC, he attended a meeting with the AGTF outlining the proposed changes to the constitution.
"It seems like the student focus and the alumni focus are very different with regard to this constitution --- with the students focused on the changes to the petition system and the alumni focused on the actual structure of the governing board," Waters said.
Vice President of Alumni Relations David Spalding '76 questioned the website's claims that alumni have been misled about student satisfaction, pointing out that outgoing seniors have consistently indicated high levels of satisfaction with Dartmouth.
From a larger perspective, the website's creators expressed hope that the site would allow students to play a more active role in making decisions regarding the future of the College.
"Students play a relatively small role in the direction of the College," Stork said. "But as evident with the swim team [the funding for which was not cut because of student support], the student voice is incredibly powerful and it must be heard by those deciding on the fate of the College. Hopefully, we can gain a voice in some of these policy decisions."
