Friday's Verbum Ultimum urged the College and alumni to move beyond the 1891 agreement and reach a new settlement on the issue of parity. How do you think they should resolve this issue?
All Dartmouth trustees should be alumni-elected. It's absurd for a college with such a wealth of diverse and powerful talents in its extended community to be governed by an institution bent on preserving a stale and uninspired mind set. The Board needs to get over itself and realize that they're doing more to hold Dartmouth back than any budget crisis ever could.Raza Rasheed '12
How many lawsuits need to fail before the alumni see that the courts are not going to help them? It was a poorly-advised decision to sue the College in the first place, even if the decision to expand the Board was unjust. The alumni now need to return to the Board of Trustees and use their elected members to negotiate a new understanding and get it in formal text.Chris Talamo '11
Frankly, the vast majority of this campus has no idea what parity is, and could really care less about the makeup of the Board of Trustees. All this litigation is undoubtedly costing the College a lot of time and money, resources that can be spent on much better causes given present financial circumstances. It's hard to believe that with a $100 million budget shortfall, the Board is still preoccupied with how many of its members are alumni elected. Find some compromise that makes the alumni happy and move on already.
Ethan Wang '13
The Association of Alumni should have a referendum on the issue for the next election. If a majority of the alumni approve of parity, then we're in the same place. But, if they disapprove then those who favored the lawsuit will realize that democracy has already spoken.Spenser Mestel '11There remains nothing more important than ensuring an equal number of alumni-elected trustees are able to serve on the Board. As the College prepares to trim its budget, we must ensure that the voices of alumni chosen to serve based on their love of the College and their capacity for ingenuity of their proposals are not subordinated to those of mercenary members.Josh Kornberg '13
I think the solution is clear and obvious: honor the original agreement. Whether or not the court system holds it to be valid is irrelevant. It was an agreement made between the alumni and the College, and absent any compelling reason to rescind that agreement, I do not see why it should not be honored. I agree with the Verbum that this debate should end in fact, I think it should never have started in the first place. It is up to the administration who initially opened this wound in our community to back down and restore the peace they violated.Peter Blair '12
Glance through The Dartmouth and you will find a whole host of problems besides the issue of parity that plague the College. For the sake of the student body, the employees of the College, and the alumni body this matter must be resolved and must be resolved soon. Ultimately, in my opinion, that means giving the alumni the voice on the Board of Trustees that they deserve.Jasper Hicks '12
After two unsuccessful lawsuits against Dartmouth College, the alumni looking to reinforce the agreement of 1891 may as well begin to look beyond their goals to restore the parity of the Board of Trustees. In this time of financial crisis, they should see what they hoped to accomplish with that parity and find an alternative means to effect change in the school.Julian Sarkar '13
