Clark C. Griffith '66 was appointed commissioner of the Northern League of Professional Baseball, an independent league based in Chicago, on Jan. 2. Griffith was unanimously elected by a vote of Northern League owners to replace former commissioner Jim Weigel. Rich Ehrenreich, president and managing partner of the Schaumberg Flyers and a member of the Northern League's Board of Directors, highlighted Griffith's past experience with the league as a motivating factor in Griffith's selection. Griffith previously served as the league's general council. Currently, Griffith is an adjunct professor of sports law at two Minnesota law schools and is chairman of the National Law Institute at Marquette University.
John Fry, former editor-in-chief of the magazine SKI, mentions Dartmouth-organized ski trips as helping to popularize skiing on the east coast in his new book, "The Story of Modern Skiing," which details the growth of skiing as a popular support. While Fry emphasizes that the most important developments in skiing occurred with the rise of modern ski resorts after World War II, Dartmouth-led ski excursions stimulated interest in skiing as early as the 1920s. Fry is currently the founding editor of the New York Times magazine Snow Country and a member of the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame.
Democratic congressional candidate Christine Jennings filed an appeal Wednesday to reverse a circuit judge's ruling which denied her access to electronic voting machine programming codes. Dartmouth government professor Michael Herron testified for the machine's creator, Election Systems & Software, in the original case, arguing that the undervote was likely the result of ballot format, not a computer malfunction. Jennings, a candidate for Florida's 13th District House of Representatives seat, argues that an examination of the codes could reveal that votes in the election, which was marked by a large undervote, were lost due to machine error. In the appeal, Jennings cites statements from residents who claim that they encountered difficulty when voting and contends that Leon County Circuit Judge William Gary "inappropriately ignored" the responsibility of ES&S to show that disclosing the programming codes would cause the company harm. The appeal also raises concerns about the parallel tests performed to determine the machine's accuracy.
