Sir,
An era of 1984 Orwellian doublespeak has darkened this little College on a Hill. You, sir, are the main source of this doublespeak. You try to make us see what you, Big Brother, want us to see. You refuse to give the students, staff, faculty and alumni of this College the true and clear picture of the workings of your administration. The best person to lead Dartmouth shouldn't have to hide his agenda. It is time for a change.
This is not to say that all is wrong. Amidst the darkness there are some shining beacons. I want to commend one of these, Eric Edmonds, an economics professor who has taken on two extra classes in order to keep each course small. In putting students before himself, he is a giant among men.
I am entitled to my opinion on the matter of the Association of Alumni's lawsuit and should be free, if I so choose, to legally support the association in any way I see fit. President Wright, in your "Statement by President James Wright" which was blitzed out on Oct. 3, you implied that I should not be so free. You wrote that you are "deeply disappointed" in the association's actions, and that those actions "can only harm the college." Later in the message, you wrote, "I hope that [the lawsuit] will not prove a distraction to the good work of the faculty, students, and staff." Stop telling us that you are correct and to be good little sheep and drink the Kool-aid while you shepherd us to the destination of your choice. Frankly, you shouldn't be offering any opinion on the lawsuit at all. It is a conflict of interest to use your title of president to try to influence others on a matter that directly impacts your position. I know you abstained from the governance restructuring vote. I also know which way you would have voted; you were on the review committee. There was no petition trustee on this committee. It was wise of you to abstain from the vote. Now abstain from the commentary and the attempts to push your own view. In some countries leaders respect their students enough to allow them to make their own judgment, or so I hear. (Thanks, Mr. Ahmadinejad.) I want that same respect. Calling attention to an issue and simultaneously asking that it not distract is rather oxymoronic.
With this and other instances of doublespeak, you have created a double standard. On Oct. 8, you made your 10th annual report to the faculty. In this report you touched on the governance controversy, saying, "I particularly regret the efforts of some to engage students in this controversy ... I am confident that they are capable of making up their own minds about the quality of their experience." Nice words, but what do they really mean? Regardless of the dubious origins of the now-infamous Association of Alumni e-mail, the message of this email was necessary. Agree or disagree with the association, it is clear that they had to find a way to get their message to the students. They had to do this because of your actions on Oct. 3. You yourself brought the students into this. Once you abused your position to reach all students, staff and faculty with your opinion, the association had to do the same. If you hadn't given your official "advice" to students, the association may have kept the issue at the lawyers' level. In the engagement of the students, you drew first blood.
I have one final comment on your double standard with the governance reviews. In the fall of 2005, the College hired consulting firm McKinsey and Company in order to assess Dartmouth's non-academic administrative operations. You yourself viewed this report, which recommended changes, as "extremely valuable." Similarly, the correct path to take on governance reform would have been to hire an independent third party to review the governance at the college. Instead, this very governance, and a small portion of it at that, decided to review itself. Why? I admit, it is much easier to push an agenda when you are the one reviewing things.
Stop promoting your agenda and let us as students decide for ourselves who is right and who is wrong. The facts are on the table; trust us to explore them ourselves. In the meantime, I suggest you go and hire another economics professor like Eric Edmonds. I can only hope he or she won't have to teach two classes more than usual.
