In a response to what a committee of Dartmouth trustees says has become "a highly politicized process for trustee selection," the Board of Trustees decided Friday to begin an exploration of "the size and composition of the Board and the method of Trustee selection." The decision, made at the Board's annual June meeting, coincided with the election of Charles Haldeman, Jr. '70 as the new chairman of the Board and Stephen Mandel, Jr. '78 as a new charter trustee.
The meeting was the last for now-former Board chairman Bill Neukom '70, who will be retiring from the Board after serving for 11 years.
The series of announcements follows the first alumni election of a trustee to allow open campaigning. The race, which garnered widespread national news coverage, saw top-tier candidates spend over $100,000 on their campaigns and led to the eventual election of the candidate most critical of the College administration, Stephen Smith '88, who gained a spot on the ballot via petition. Smith was the fourth consecutive petition candidate to win after running on a platform critical of the College.
In response to the nature of this most recent election, several prominent leaders in alumni governance said they believe the entire process is at an impasse. To continue to find qualified alumni to run for a seat on the Board, they say, will be increasingly difficult.
"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 in a past interview. The committee is responsible for nominating alumni to run for the Board of Trustees.
Other active alumni have disagreed, saying that the system is working as it is supposed to, electing candidates whom the alumni want even if the College administration does not.
The contentious nature of the process can also be damaging to Dartmouth's reputation, College President James Wright said.
"Part of the rhetoric in this election from a variety of sources did not depict the College accurately or well, and I can't tell what the impact of that will be," Wright said.
Now, the Board's governance committee is set on investigating how its structure and election process might be altered so as to ameliorate what it believes are flaws in the process.
"The Alumni Trustee nomination process has recently taken on the characteristics of a partisan political campaign, becoming increasingly contentious, divisive, and costly for the participants," the governance committee, a sub-committee of the Board, said in a statement on Friday. "Alumni have also raised questions about the fairness of the multiple-candidate, approval-voting, and plurality-winner features of the process. We believe these issues must be addressed, lest many highly qualified alumni be dissuaded from seeking nomination."
The five-trustee committee consists of Haldeman, Wright and three others, none of whom is a sitting trustee who rose to the Board as a petition candidate. The governance committee's announcement marks its last act under Neukom, who chaired the committee. Neukom declined to comment on the announcement.
The three sitting alumni trustees who have won election as petition candidates, T.J. Rodgers '70, Peter Robinson '79 and Todd Zywicki '88, said they would reserve judgment on this reevaluation of Board composition until its completion.
According to Haldeman, the Board last sought to analyze its composition in 1990.
"Any board periodically has to say, 'Are we the right size, are we fully representative of our constituencies?,'" he said. "Clearly there has been some politicization of the election process, which has been a relatively recent phenomenon with so much money being spent. You wonder if that is appropriate for a college and whether we will get the right people to be trustees."
Some alumni did not react positively to the possibility of an alteration of the Board's structure and the election process.
"I think we will see what the governance committee comes up with, but if they thought the fight over the new constitution was contentious, I guarantee you they haven't seen anything yet," John MacGovern '80, founder of the Hanover Institute, said. The Hanover Institute is a non-profit organization that supported Smith's campaign and is often critical of the College. "They will lose the support of alumni, Dartmouth will suffer and ultimately it will be decided by [Chief Justice] John Roberts, and they would lose that."
Haldeman refused to comment on the possible changes the governance committee and the Board might consider, saying "we are starting with no preconceived notions."
"I think that the only thing I want to pledge at this point is that every member of the governance committee is going in with an open mind," Haldeman said. "I pledge that we will seek input from all of our constituencies and we will do what we believe is best for Dartmouth."
Haldeman's election as chairman follows the end of Neukom's three-year term in the position. Currently the CEO of Putnam Investments, Haldeman received his M.B.A. and J.D. from Harvard University. After Harvard he went on to join Cook and Bieler Inc., the investment management firm, before leaving for the United Asset Management Corp. in 1998. He joined Putnam in 2002 and became CEO in 2003.
Haldeman was elected to the Board as a charter trustee in 2004, having served previously as a member of the President's Leadership Council and the Alumni Fund, among other College volunteer positions. Months after his appointment to the Board, Haldeman donated $10 million to the College for the construction and naming of the Haldeman Center.
Among his goals as chairman, Haldeman said he hopes to continue to attract intelligent students, increase faculty retention efforts, ensure that the College's need-blind policies are sustainable and expand upon the College's infrastructural building program.
Accordingly, the Board also announced plans to move forward on the life sciences building project, along with a visual arts center, the Class of 1953 commons and a replacement for Thayer Dining Hall.
"One of my goals is to continue to have Dartmouth do the many things it has been doing right for many years, that it continue to be the kind of place that attracts the best and brightest students," Haldeman said.
With Neukom leaving the Board, Mandel was elected as a charter trustee to replace him. The founder of financial management firm Lone Pine Capital, Mandel received his M.B.A. from Harvard University in 1982. Following Harvard, he worked successively at Mars and Co., Goldman Sachs and the Tiger Management Corp., before founding Lone Pine in 1997.
Mandel joins the Board along with Smith, effective immediately.
