In the ongoing turmoil over the passage of the proposed Association of Alumni constitution, two major conflicting groups with vastly different structures and campaign tactics have emerged -- Supporters for a Democratic Dartmouth, which opposes the constitution and Dartmouth Alumni for Common Sense, which supports it.
DACS, which formed last month and is registered as a volunteer corporation in the state of New Hampshire, has been conducting a telephone survey to gauge whether alumni believe that Dartmouth is headed in the right direction and ask if and how they plan to vote. The organization also began a direct mail campaign on Monday and plans to follow those actions with informative e-mail clips and updates on its website.
Each of the two rival groups believes that the other's catchphrase platform is deceiving. DACS President Dick Page '54 said his organization aims to counteract misinformation provided by Supporters of a Democratic Dartmouth and that despite Supporters of a Democratic Dartmouth's attempt to portray the proposed constitution as undemocratic, it is actually more democratic than the current version.
"Obviously people want to vote for something that's democratic, but I am certainly among those who believe that what we have written is incredibly democratic. I would never have joined the [Alumni Governance Task Force] otherwise," said DACS Secretary Martha Hennessey '76, who is also a member of the AGTF, the body that wrote the constitution.
Unlike like DACS, which has an organizational hierarchy with officers and a website that includes a list of trustees emeriti and other alumni who support the constitution, Supporters of a Democratic Dartmouth does not consider itself to have members and instead sees itself as a loosely organized group.
"I'm not even sure that you can call it an organization, as there has never been any membership drive or fund drive. No one has any official positions," said David Gale '00, an opponent of the constitution whose writing is featured on the Supporters of a Democratic Dartmouth website. "It's not an organization because it's not organized."
Page, however, believes Supporters of a Democratic Dartmouth is in fact "well-organized and well-disciplined."
Most of the information on the organization's website is excerpted from publications at Dartmouth and across the country, and the website does not provide a list of alumni against the constitution. Because of this and the unstructured nature of the group, supporters of the constitution such as Page question the site's credibility.
"It's important to look at who are the people putting their names forward," Page said, adding that "an impressive list of Dartmouth trustees and alumni" support the constitution.
Joseph Asch '79 said that Supporters of a Democratic Dartmouth's website does not list names so that undergraduates involved would not risk being negatively questioned by others.
"They are worried about students being intimidated and being coerced to change their views," Joe Malchow '08 said in reference to an incident earlier this summer in which Nicholas Stork '06 maintains that Vice President of Alumni Relations David Spalding '59 questioned him about his anti-constitution views. Malchow writes a conservative weblog that often touches on alumni governance issues.
Several anti-constitution alumni also said it was not important to list supporters' names because they believe that voters should decide based on the constitution's content alone.
"The other side says look at all these nice people, they're your friends, support them," Asch said. "They're putting forth personality. A Dartmouth College group is more interested in content than personality."
Those vocally opposed to the constitution believe that the DACS campaign has spent too much money and is an overly insider-based organization. However, members of DACS believe that their campaigning is a necessary reply to the communications of those affiliated with Supporters of a Democratic Dartmouth.
"If we don't respond to the other side it looks like we have no response," Hennessey said. "There is not a person on DACS or AGTF who wouldn't rather spend that money on a tuition break for a student. Everyone is aware that we don't want to bombard them. It is costing money no one wants to be spending, but we believe that it is in the best interest of Dartmouth's national reputation and what goes on for alumni."
Hennessey and others defend the constitution as the result of years of hard work and collaboration of both the AGTF and thousands of alumni.
"If we made a mistake as a task force, it's that we didn't prepare for the onslaught. We had no idea of the machinery," Hennessey said. "We weren't a defensive group, we were a productive group."
