It is an axiom, supposedly coined by Henry Kissinger: The bitterness of academic politics is inversely proportional to the stakes. Actually, the stakes of disputes about the governance of academic institutions are large but need not descend into bitterness.
If Dartmouth will countenance an intervention in its debates from this Princetonian (Ph.D., 1968), I would like to suggest what Sandy Alderson of the Class of 1969, if elected, would bring to the Board of Trustees.
Although he is a man of strong convictions, for which he argues vigorously, Alderson has a knack for lowering the temperature of disputes. This is because he is impatient only with people who cling to what Orwell called "smelly little orthodoxies." Baseball has its share of those. But it has fewer of them today because of the revolution in thinking Sandy ignited.
Perhaps many of you have read the best-selling book "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis. You can find it in the sports section of most bookstores. It could, however, be properly placed in the section for business/management books. Although its subject might seem to be baseball, its real subject is how to devise metrics for gauging the probable value-added by resources in any undertaking.
The protagonist of "Moneyball" is Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A's. But Sandy hired Beane to implement new ways of thinking about the evaluation of baseball talents suited to this insight: Baseball actually does have a clock. It has 27 ticks, called outs. Success comes from avoiding outs -- from keeping an inning going by getting on base, and accumulating, as it were, bases.
Much flows from this, but the point that is germane to Dartmouth is this: The success of any institution depends on clear and constantly refreshed thinking about how best to match resources to the institution's mission. For a fine assessment of Sandy's rethinking of the business of baseball -- the modernization of baseball management -- see "The Numbers Game" by Alan Schwarz.
Dartmouth's turmoils have earned it unwanted and often unjust attention around the nation. Alumni and others who desire a less tumultuous and more constructively stimulating future for the College could begin by making Sandy a trustee.
