Strong opposition to the Hanover Police Department's proposed alcohol compliance check policy has increased the visibility of Board of Trustees petition candidate Joe Asch '79 among students, according to several students interviewed by The Dartmouth.
Asch and Alumni Council-nominated trustee candidate John Replogle '88 whom Asch is opposing in the race both made statements against the compliance checks after Giaconne's first announcement. Asch, however, also actively opposed the policy in posts on the Dartblog web site, to which he is a regular contributor, in addition to attending a Hanover Select Board meeting and speaking with students on the policy.
Both Replogle and Morton Kondracke '60, the Alumni Council-nominated trustee candidate who is running unopposed for the second available seat, said they believe Asch is using Dartblog as a "campaign vehicle" in the trustee race.
Asch and Replogle both credited the increased readership among students to interest in learning more information about the Hanover Police policy.
Max Yoeli '12, supporter of Asch's Facebook page "Joe Asch '79 for Dartmouth Trustee" said he is impressed by Asch's close interactions with College students.
"The best description I have ever heard of [Asch] is he is a Dartmouth patriot,'" Yoeli said.
Yoeli said that Asch's outspokenness about the alcohol policy is "the only reason" he started to support Asch. Yoeli said he became familiar with Asch's other campaign platforms after contacting Asch to discuss the alcohol policy.
Replogle said in an interview with The Dartmouth that students read Dartblog because they feel they have an "advocate" in Asch, adding that Asch's commentary on the new alcohol policy "would have a populist appeal with students."
Students do not have a vote in the upcoming elections for Board members.
In the six days following the announcement, Asch posted 13 comments about the issue on Dartblog nine of which he published within one day of the announcement.
As of Feb. 11, Dartblog had seen a 75 percent increase in visitors to the site. Of those readers, 4,100 of 14,350 viewed the site using the Dartmouth network, Joe Malchow '08, the web site's founder, said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth.
"Alumni readers of Dartblog continued their reading patterns during the Giaccone imbroglio, while student readers increased their activity exponentially," Malchow said.
An advertisement reading "Dartblog writer Joe Asch is running for trustee" appears at the top of the Dartblog web site, with a link to Asch's campaign web site.
John Smith '09, another supporter of Asch's Facebook page, said he supports Asch's trustee candidacy because of Asch's "vocal" reporting on the alcohol policy. Support for Asch on Facebook jumped after Dartblog began reporting significantly on the alcohol policy.
"[Asch] has been my main source of information about the policy change," Smith said. "It shows he really cares about the students and is in touch with the campus."
Smith added that he supports Asch instead of other candidates because he is not familiar with the other candidates' opinions on the issue.
Asch was one of four guest speakers and the only trustee candidate invited to speak at a forum organized by the Dartmouth Political Union last week to discuss the alcohol policy, according to DPU president Nathan Bruschi '10. Asch and acting Head of Safety and Security Keiselim Montas were the only invitees who attended the meeting.
Bruschi said Asch was invited to the meeting because he was a trustee candidate who had taken a "bold stance" in opposition of the alcohol policy.
Jason Goodman '12 said he does not believe students should be involved in the trustee election because it is more the business "of administrators and alumni."
"It doesn't really make sense to be involving students to the extent Joe Asch is," he said.
Asch said he has always been an active commentator about the College, however.
"I have been writing about Dartmouth College issues for almost 10 years now and I think people read my materials because what I write is relevant to them and important to the life of the College, and if that is a campaign vehicle then so be it," Asch said.
Asch has been criticized for not fully understanding the specific role of a member of the Board by Kondracke, Repologle and other alumni.
"I respect [Asch's] intense interest in the College and I read his blogs, but the role of a trustee is to be a policymaker, and I fear [Asch] has a tendency to be a micro-manager," Kondracke said previously in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. "[Asch] is a provocative blogger; [Replogle] will be a productive trustee."
Of 41 students surveyed by The Dartmouth, six said they follow the trustee race. Fourteen students said they had heard of Asch, four had heard of Replogle and two had heard of Kondracke. Kondracke also made a statement denouncing the policy.
By press time, of 88 the 155 "fans" of Asch's Facebook page were current Dartmouth undergraduates. Repogle's Facebook page has 147 supporters, one of whom is an undergraduate student. The page supporting Kondracke's candidacy for the Board has 66 members, one of whom is a College student.
On Feb. 10, Hanover Police Chief Nicholas Giaccone announced that Hanover Police would indefinitely delay its implementation of the compliance checks, made public Feb. 4.
