Prominent leaders in alumni governance at Dartmouth are questioning whether the institution of alumni-elected trustees is in jeopardy. The issue surfaced following a presentation made by Chairman of the Board of Trustees Bill Neukom '64 May 19 before the annual meeting of the Alumni Council, one of the College's two principle representative alumni bodies.
The controversy comes after the first trustee election to allow open campaigning, which brought over $100,000 into the race.
"The question going forward is will we be able to generate a capable list of alumni who will be interested in running under the current rules," Rick Routhier '73 Tu'76, chairman of the Alumni Council's nominating committee, said. The committee is responsible for nominating alumni to run for the Board of Trustees.
"The current rules allow for campaigning, which means whoever runs will have to have money to campaign, and that is not an attractive opportunity for many people who would interested in and capable of serving on the Board of Trustees," he said.
In recent years the Board of Trustees has included an equal number of members elected by the alumni body and those selected by the Board itself, so-called charter trustees.
Any review of or change to the structure of the Board, in response to the impasse highlighted by Routhier, could potentially affect this tradition of balance.
While there is some variation in what participants recall happening at the Alumni Council's meeting on May 19, most agree that Neukom stated that a sub-committee of the Board, the governance committee, is currently exploring changes to the size and composition of the Board and would present its findings in June.
"I may have described the jurisdiction of the governance committee," Neukom recalled saying at the meeting. "Agendas, committee assignments, evaluations of the president and the trustees and the size and composition of the Board would be among those. I do not want to get ahead of the work of the governance committee."
In response to Neukom's statement at the meeting, Joe Asch '79 asked him whether he "was prepared to commit to respecting the 1892 agreement that mandated that there be a numerical balance between charter and alumni trustees on the Board," Asch said in an e-mail message.
Neukom clarified that an 1891 agreement, not an 1892 one, specified that the first five trustees to retire after 1891 must be replaced by alumni elected trustees.
"Resolved, that the graduates of the College, the Thayer School ... of at least five years standing may nominate a suitable person for election to each of the five trusteeships next becoming vacant on the Board of Trustees of the College," the 1891 agreement states. It does not mention parity with respect to the number of alumni-elected trustees and charter trustees, although the addition of 5 alumni-elected trustees at the time gave the Board as many alumni trustees as charter trustees. The creation of this balance in 1891 has prompted some current alumni to contend that balance is a codified part of the Board's history.
"In terms of honoring that [agreement], any Board of the College would be aware of it and the history since then, but it is of even more importance that the Board look at current circumstances and do what it thinks is in the best interest of the College," Neukom said in an interview with The Dartmouth, while cautioning that he was not speaking on behalf of the entire Board.
Neukom's statement on the actions of the governance committee, combined with his hesitancy to commit to honoring any agreement without the approval of the entire Board, led Asch and other alumni to question whether the future of the current level of alumni representation on the Board is threatened.
"It would appear that a small cabal of Dartmouth trustees, as a result of four consecutive defeats of their preferred candidates, is seeking to change the rules, resulting in a significant dilution in the traditional right of our alumni to select half the Board of Trustees," John MacGovern '88 said in an e-mail message. MacGovern is the founder of the Hanover Institute, a non-profit organization often critical of the administration and the current state of alumni governance.
"Loyal Dartmouth alumni urge our newly elected Association of Alumni leaders to make it resoundingly clear to Dartmouth's trustees that Dartmouth alumni are vehemently opposed to any action that would dilute or undermine this important right of all alumni to select one half of the Board of Trustees, and, will take all actions necessary to protect that traditional right," he said.
