It is now evident that the current leadership of the College's Association of Alumni will run unopposed in the organization's spring election ("No petition candidates to run in AoA election," Jan. 27). While we find this situation philosophically disappointing, we realize that now is the time to put our idealism aside: a quiet Association election, at least this go-around, is in the College's best interest.
In recent years, the Association has become the predominant source of alumni controversy at the College. As has often been rehashed on the pages of this and other publications, the organization's leadership voted to file suit against Dartmouth in an effort to block changes to the Board of Trustees in fall 2007. Last spring, candidates critical of the suit won election to all of the Association's executive committee seats, in what was an explicit referendum on that legal action. The suit was subsequently withdrawn.
In principle, the lack of opposition to the current Association leadership undermines the democratic foundations that make the role of Dartmouth alumni in the College's governance both significant and unique. Dartmouth allows the voices of its former students to be heard in a manner replicated at few of our peer institutions. Unfortunately, when every candidate runs unopposed, the virtues of this democracy (and of democracy in general) are compromised.
Nonetheless, this year's election comes as a refreshing, if perhaps surprising, change from the highly divisive and embarrassing political battles that have marked much of our time at Dartmouth. While in the past, alumni politics may have been more "democratic," the costs of the mudslinging and needless polarization, for which all parties involved were to blame, outweighed the inherent benefits of a contested election.
This polarization tarnished Dartmouth's image, but also profoundly fractured our alumni base. We see the 2009 Association elections as an opportunity, albeit a democratically weak one, to heal the wounds inflicted on alumni unity.
Avoiding the distraction of alumni infighting is perhaps more important now than ever before. Even before the 18-percent drop in the College's endowment alerted us to the true gravity of our financial situation ("Endowment returns decline by 18 percent," Jan. 23), we had already learned that alumni funding for both the Dartmouth College Fund and the Campaign for the Dartmouth Experience was in jeopardy ("Fundraising has 'mixed results'," Jan. 15), and that the initially predicted $40 million in budget cuts will most likely not be sufficient to cure the College's financial woes.
It is therefore imperative that, for the time being, alumni continue to support the College, if not its policies. If this support comes at the ideological expense of unadulterated democracy, then that's a trade-off we may, given our present situation, have to be willing to make.
