In an effort to reduce contention in the ongoing Association of Alumni election, the Association's nominating committee included former petition candidates on the its own slate, a member of the committee said. Other petition candidates, nonetheless, are running in opposition.
The situation, according to those involved, has resulted from a split over support for the proposed alumni constitution that failed in the Fall term.
In elections for the executive board and officers of the Association, along with elections for College trustees, a nominating committee traditionally puts forth a slate of internally vetted candidates. Over the past few election cycles, however, some alumni have taken issue with this alleged "insider's approach" and have supported opposition candidates who are instead nominated by petition. This process led to the success of several of the more recently elected trustees as petition candidates, including Peter Robinson '79, T.J. Rodgers '70 and Todd Zywicki '88.
Many of the petition candidates are supported by John MacGovern '80, who is the founder of the Hanover Institute, a non-profit organization often critical of the Association and the College administration.
The Association nominating committee made an attempt to include former petition candidates in order to address the "insider" criticism, said Doug Keare '56 Th'57 Tu'57, a member of the Association nominating committee.
"We were concerned with putting forward [a slate] that has credibility," Keare said. "Bill Hutchinson ['76], who is the nominated candidate for president, ran at least two or three times in contested elections as a petition candidate, but he conducted himself so well that the in-group decided he was a reasonable interlocutor and he was put on the nominated slate."
Hutchinson, John Harrington '80 and Alex Wilson '01 are the alumni confirmed to be running on the nominated slate despite being former petition candidates. Each of them, however, is still being challenged by other petition candidates.
"There was hope on our [the nominating committee's] part that by being open and trying to bring people from all parts of the spectrum onto the slate that we could avoid the dislocations of having to have a contentious election," Keare said.
Frank Gado '58, a petition candidate for vice-president, was skeptical about the nominating committee's intentions.
"Having been characterized as insiders for so long, the insider slate wanted to establish the face of some diversity -- it is more of a window dressing," Gado said.
Ed Ross '56, a founder along with Keare of Dartmouth Alumni for Open Goverance and a past supporter of the Hanover Institute, had tried to shuttle between the Association nominating committee and MacGovern in an attempt to prevent petitioners from opposing the slate, given the Association's efforts at inclusiveness and diversity in its nominations.
"I decided that it would be productive to try to get things on a positive keel, so I called John [MacGovern] and asked about what he thought of the possibilities of putting together a joint slate," Ross said.
The negotiations failed, however, as the nominating committee and MacGovern split over the issue of the alumni constitution, Ross said.
Those former petition candidates included on the Association's slate are relatively supportive of the alumni constitution, while those petition candidates running in opposition are against it, Ross explained.
Ultimately, though, Keare hopes the constitution will be revisited.
"What we need to do is to get the people on the nominated slate to lead the alumni and I hope they will return to the constitution," he said. "I think there has been enough heat and somewhat of a lack of light in recent times. It is entirely possible that I contributed more heat than light myself, but I think it is time that we tried to start turn up the light and get it into corners that have not been examined."
Messages left for MacGovern were not returned as of press time.
