Of the 26 alumni running to be members and officers of the executive committee of the Dartmouth Association of Alumni, five graduated from the College within the past seven years. Several of these young alumni said they hope to lend a "new perspective" to the association and to address the current debate over alumni governance.
"Everyone's Dartmouth experience is different, and so it is important that all alumni are represented," Merle Adelman '80, the current first vice president of the executive committee, said. "Also, young alumni represent a much larger bloc than the older alumni."
The five candidates include Jim Baehr '05, David Gale '00, Noah Riner '06, Alex Wilson '01 and Allison Zeilinger '04. Baehr is running for first vice president of the executive committee, while the others are running to gain seats on the committee.
The graduates represent a continuation of the split between "establishment" nominated candidates, who are chosen by a sub-group of the executive committee, and those nominated by petition, who include Baehr, Gale and Riner.
"The petition candidates are running on a different platform than the official candidates," Baehr said. "They may be able to bring in an independent mindset."
Adelman, a member of the nominating committee, nonetheless downplayed the significance of the difference between petition and committee nomination.
"A lot of that has to do with your visibility and who knows you," Adelman said. "There are certain individuals who are known by the people who organize the petition slate and there are other people who are known by other associations. We really wanted to have a wide, diverse group -- it is not insiders versus outsiders."
The nominating committee made an effort to reach out to former petition candidates in an attempt to be more inclusive, according to several of the individuals involved.
Wilson, for example, ran in the five previous elections on the petition slate, but was tapped by the nominating committee for the current election.
"Merle Adelman has been reaching out to a number of people," Wilson said. "I think it is an honest and sincere effort to put together an executive committee that represents people on both sides of the issues."
Despite running on different slates, most of the five young alumni interviewed by The Dartmouth shared a common goal of addressing the current debate over the election process within the association.
Guidelines passed by the current executive committee call for all-media elections for all votes on substantive matters. As a result, alumni do not have to come to Hanover to cast their ballots. These guidelines, however, have not been codified within the alumni constitution.
"Putting all-media voting into the constitution is my biggest issue," Riner said in an e-mail. "For years there has been talk about doing it, but it still hasn't happened. If elected, I won't put up with the procrastination anymore: all-media voting, get 'er done."
As a corollary to this, Wilson expressed a desire to follow up on the failed ratification of the last proposed alumni constitution and address the general issue of alumni governance.
"I think we are back to square one, but I think everyone agrees that there is not one unified alumni voice with regard to the administration or students," Wilson said. "Alumni should have more of a role in the debate of the future of the College, which they don't have right now except in a disorganized and commercial sense."
Wilson, if elected, hopes to come up with a process that can lead to a proposal for unification of the two alumni organizations, the Association of Alumni and the Alumni Council.
"The first key is that we are going to have to unify governance and come up with a process that can lead to a consensus unification proposal -- a document that would truly raise little to no division," Wilson said. "The second key is to reduce the conflict and bitterness of alumni on either side of the debate -- there is very little trust."
Similarly, Baehr said he believes a central issue is opening up the association to outside scrutiny.
"I think transparency, like publishing full results of elections and surveys and making [the association's] financial information open to the public is important," Baehr said in an e-mail.
Zeilinger, while not commenting on a specific issue of governance, hopes to address the current nature of communication on the association.
"I view the nomination as an opportunity to serve the Dartmouth community (past, present, future) by helping the governing and administrative forces at the College get in touch with alumni sentiment," she wrote in an e-mail. "I see my role -- or those of the elected Executive Committee of the Association of Alumni -- to truly understand alumni sentiment and communicate it to the governance of the College, so that we protect the Dartmouth experience and preserve the tradition."
All-media voting for the Association of Alumni and Board of Trustees elections will continue through May 15. Voting in person for the association election will also be allowed at its annual meeting on May 19. As of May 9, 16 percent of eligible alumni had cast online ballots, according to the "Vox the Vote" web site.
Gale could not be reached for comment as of press time.
