Stephen Smith '88, the most recent alumnus to enter the race for a seat on the Board of Trustees, is running as a petition candidate on a campaign of keeping Dartmouth a "college," promoting free speech on campus and reforming the Committee on Standards.
Smith, a law professor at University of Virginia, said his candidacy is partially motivated by the desire to provoke debate during the campaign.
"I think having a petition candidate is vital to make progress," he said. "Petition candidates are the most likely to really try to make an effort to think if the administration's views are the right views."
Smith also said the prospect of campaigning -- now allowed in the Trustee race for the first time and the object of criticism following the hotly debated and political campaigns surrounding the failed alumni constitution proposal this fall -- does not daunt him.
"The campaigning doesn't bother me if we're on the issues, and we're talking about things that matter," he said. "I am concerned that the other side will resort to mudslinging and I think it's bad for the College and I think it's an embarrassment. If the others start mudslinging, I'm determined to keep to the issues of the campaign and not resort to that."
He continued. "I think [mudslinging] is always a concern, particularly after the last years' elections -- I think they're hungry for a win, and the concern is that they might resort to dirty tactics to try to win, to try to avoid the impression that the independents have more support among the alumni. I think that's what they're afraid of and they'll do anything to avoid that result."
Smith hesitated to criticize Dartmouth's current administration outright, although he posted critical comments from fellow alumni on his campaign blog in reference to the perceived increasing emphasis on research rather than teaching at the College.
"I'm not one of these candidates to just tear down the institution and say the sky is falling," he said. "I think the biggest problem is that it's starting to slide from being a small college of the kind Daniel Webster spoke of in terms of strong liberal arts into being a research university -- what I call a cheap knockoff of Harvard. The Wright administration has been heavily investing in research and graduate programs, and I support that as long as we continue to invest in the undergraduate [program] by reducing class sizes and investing in undergraduate teaching."
Smith also noted that many alumni are similarly concerned by the apparent change in priorities at the College.
"President Wright has said that Dartmouth is a university in all but name. And that is a statement a lot of alumni find troubling because if there was one thing Dartmouth wasn't when we went, it was a university," he said.
Smith added that he doesn't condemn research, which he said "makes for better teaching," as long as the emphasis on the undergraduate experience is upheld.
"I think it's interesting when critics say that I'm an old-fashioned dinosaur who's only about teaching and not research," he said. "It's like: Well, hello. I'm an academic, that's my job. I go teach and then I research and write scholarly articles, and that improves my teaching. All I'm saying is that balance is important."
Smith resisted being grouped with the three Trustees who ran by petition, who have also expressed conservative views on maintaining tradition at the College.
"First of all, I think politics has nothing to do with the elections," he said. "I personally resist the label of traditionalist and conservative because that suggests that I want to take it back to the days of 'Old Dartmouth,' which is absurd. Because if you think about it, as a poor black kid I wouldn't have been allowed to go. I'm not saying we don't change. We build on the best of Dartmouth's past, and it's a dynamic process of changing in positive ways while maintaining connections to Dartmouth's strengths in the past."
He added that he does not speak for any group of alumni as he reiterated that he is not running for any conservative faction.
"I'm running to be an independent. I'm not running to be a yes-man to the administration or a yes-man to the independents," he said. "I'm running to be Stephen Smith and be my own man."
Smith also called for greater transparency in COS judicial decisions, decisions he called "shrouded in secrecy."
Smith is also running on a platform of a greater dedication to free speech on campus, which he believes is slipping under the current administration.
"When President Wright condemns students who say 'offensive' things as 'bullies,' as he did just a few months ago, it's clear that we have more work to do on free speech," he said in his press release.
Smith, like any other prospective petition candidate, must submit 500 signatures by Feb. 2 to officially enter the race.
