All but two current members of the Dartmouth Association of Alumni executive committee will run for reelection in 2010, Association President John Mathias '69 announced on Monday. The two members who will not run for reelection this year David Spalding '76 and Cheryl Bascomb '82 have both reached the Association's three-term limit.
The Association has nominated Lynn Gaudet '81, the director of alumni leadership in the College's Office of Alumni Relations, to run to replace Spalding, Dartmouth's vice president for Alumni Relations, as secretary-treasurer.
Mark Alperin '80 was nominated to seek the Association executive committee seat now occupied by Bascomb, Mathias said.
Other candidates may still be nominated by petition until Jan. 11, 2010.
Although the Association constitution does not require that the secretary-treasurer be a College employee, Dartmouth employees have traditionally filled the role since 1905, Spalding said. The tradition began when former College President Ernest Martin Hopkins, Class of 1901, served as secretary of the Dartmouth Secretaries Association, a precursor to the Association, Diana Lawrence, director of communications for the Office of Alumni Relations, said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth.
The tradition aids in "strengthening the ties between the College and her alumni leadership" and is "still strongly embraced by the alumni," Lawrence said in the e-mail.
Before Gaudet became director of alumni leadership three years ago, she served as associate director in the same department. A parent of two Dartmouth students, Gaudet is also married to men's hockey coach Bob Gaudet '81. Gaudet has previously served on the Association executive committee and as president of the Dartmouth Club of Rhode Island.
"I think that the fact that I have all of these different relationships with the College, having been a student, having children, [as an alumna], I hope brings some good perspective to the executive committee," Gaudet said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Alperin was a winner of a 2009 Alumni Award and has served as a representative to the Alumni Council and on the Tucker Foundation's Board of Visitors. He was named president of Vertex Fasteners, a hardware company based in Pawtucket, R.I., in 2004.Alperin could not be reached for comment by press time.
Both Gaudet and Alperin, along with the other candidates, will work over the next month to develop their platforms and prepare personal statements, Mathias said.
"Support for Dartmouth has always been the main plank of what we are about," Mathias said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "And unity also is part of that we want a united alumni body supporting Dartmouth in every way possible in these difficult times."
Mathias added that all members of the recently announced Association slate oppose the alumni lawsuit filed against the College's Board of Trustees in November 2008.
"All of us on our slate stand against the lawsuit and we disfavor the continuation of the lawsuit in its present form by others," Mathias said. "We are against litigation as an appropriate means for alumni to resolve their differences with one another. That doesn't change."
There are no amendments to the alumni constitution up for consideration this year.
"I think that first of all it is very difficult to get any amendment to pass because it takes two-thirds of the vote and we just had a very significant amendment passed last time around," Mathias said. "So really I think it's really an issue of wanting to have some time to reflect on how that's gone, let's take a look at the election cycle."
Voting in the Association executive committee elections begins in March and continues through April 2010.
