Correction Appended
The election of Morton Kondracke '60 and John Replogle '88 both Alumni Council nominees to the Board of Trustees was the first test of how disagreements between Dartmouth alumni about the Board's 2007 decision to end parity would affect the election of new trustees. This election the first of the past five elections in which a petition candidate lost, and the first election to occur under recently-passed election reforms may represent a departure from the criticism of College administrators that marked alumni elections during the later years of former College President James Wright's administration.
A NEW POLITICAL CLIMATE
Before this year's election, three consecutive trustee campaign periods led to the elections of petition candidates T.J. Rodgers '70 in 2004, Peter Robinson '79 and Todd Zywicki '88 in 2005 and Stephen Smith '88 in 2007. All four trustees' campaigns featured a range of attacks on the College and the administration, with accusations of financial imprudence, overcrowded classrooms and limitations on free speech. Throughout the 2004 campaign period, Rodgers emphasized that he was considered the "anti-establishment candidate," The Dartmouth previously reported.
The Board ruled to end parity a tradition that had been in place since an 1891 agreement between the College and alumni in September 2007 by adding eight new charter trustees to the 18-seat Board. At the time, eight of the 18 seats were charter trustees, selected by the Board itself, eight were elected by alumni, and two seats were filled ex-officio by the College president and the governor of New Hampshire.
After the Board ended parity, the Association of Alumni filed a lawsuit now a polarizing issue in the parity debate in October 2007, alleging that the 1891 agreement created a binding legal obligation to maintain parity. Several critics of the governance change argued that the Board's decision to end parity was motivated by its desire to stop the petition candidates from gaining a majority on the Board.
The governor of New Hampshire traditionally does not vote on College matters, which meant alumni-elected trustees represented eight of 17 voting trustees. With the change in governance structure, alumni-elected trustees were no longer one vote away from a majority on the Board.
After the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice at the request of a newly-elected Association executive committee in June 2008, an independent group of alumni filed a lawsuit with the same claims in November 2008. The second lawsuit is still ongoing.
Petition candidates historically have generated controversy over their heated rhetoric and open criticism of the College administration. Zywicki, Rodgers, Robinson and Smith particularly opposed Wright and openly advocating parity, filing an amicus brief in 2007 that supported the lawsuit against the College.
These factors have often prevented petitioners from gaining the acceptance of large groups of alumni and people closely associated with the College.
But this year, both petition candidate Joe Asch '79 and the "Dartmouth United" Association petition slate took a much more positive tone toward the administration, and were particularly vocal in their support of College President Jim Yong Kim, perhaps seeking to build on Kim's popularity among alumni. Asch also stated during the election that he did not support the second lawsuit, calling it a "waste of resources."
Both Asch and J. Michael Murphy '61, presidential candidate for the "Dartmouth United" slate, had publicly criticized Wright during Wright's administration. Their more positive campaign rhetoric this year may have made them closer in ideology to the Council and Association-nominated candidates they opposed.
Now that the political climate has turned away from harsh criticism of the College administration, College officials may be more willing to move toward parity at their own pace, outside of the context of a lawsuit.
The results of this year's election show that alumni do not support lawsuits against the College as a way to restore Board parity, Kim said in a recent interview with The Dartmouth Editorial Board.
"I'm sure we're going to continue to have a conversation about the makeup of the Board, but I think what's become clear is that the alumni and everyone has, at least by this vote, agreed that this is a decision that the Board makes," Kim said. "This is not a decision you can take away from the Board through a lawsuit."
In 2007, the same year it ended parity, the Board mandated that the Council could only nominate one or two candidates for open trustee seats, although the effects of this change were not seen until this year's election. Prior regulations mandated that the Council nominate three candidates and alumni could vote for any or all trustee candidates. Following approval of the mandate given by voting alumni in 2009, alumni can only vote for one candidate for each open trustee spot. These changes, it was assumed, would make it simpler for Council-nominated candidates to win.
This election was the first under the new nomination rules and saw the expansion of a two-party mentality among College alumni, with Replogle representing the Council-nominated side and Asch coming from the petition side. This year, the election was often presented as a "choice" between the two camps.
With petition candidates no longer automatically winning elections, they seem less and less likely to gain control of a significant segment of votes on the Board.
"CONTENTIOUS, DIVISIVE AND COSTLY"
The decision to end parity came at the recommendation of a Board governance committee, which was formed in an effort to stem increasingly contentious and expensive campaigns, several trustees and alumni officials previously told The Dartmouth.
"The Alumni trustee nomination process has recently taken on the characteristics of a partisan political campaign, becoming increasingly contentious, divisive and costly for the participants," the governance committee said in its June 2007 statement. "Alumni have also raised questions about the fairness of the multiple-candidate, approval-voting and plurality-winner features of the process. We believe these issues must be addressed, lest many highly qualified alumni be dissuaded from seeking nomination."
Although the Association called for campaign finance reform that would limit the candidates' spending in trustee and Association elections in Fall 2009, a controlling consensus about the reform could not be reached by "politically active alumni." The majority of alumni did agree, however, that candidates should not be required to spend large amounts of money in order to have a legitimate chance to win alumni elections, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Smith's election was the first that allowed open campaigning with unrestricted campaign spending. Candidates spent over $100,000 on campaign efforts that year.
In the Editorial Board interview, Kim estimated that campaign spending for the recent election totalled more than $300,000.
This year's high campaign spending shows that the Association's efforts to enact campaign finance reform were ineffective.
Kim expressed hope that a new election process would be developed to replace the current "acrid, negative [and] angry campaigning."
"Frankly, I think the angrier [the election] seems, the more difficult it is for us to recruit students, to recruit faculty, and more importantly, the more difficult it is for us to recruit members of the Board of Trustees," Kim said.
BARRIERS TO PARITY
The need for new guidelines to limit campaign spending in alumni elections remains a legitimate concern one expressed by alumni from both camps. The best method of implementing additional restrictions, however, remains unclear.
Because the Association does not have jurisdiction over separate organizations, campaign finance reform would only be able to limit spending by candidates directly. It is unclear whether or how Association finance regulations would extend to alumni who are not candidates in the Association or trustee elections but are campaigning on behalf of candidates.
Two alumni-run nonprofit organizations Dartmouth Undying and the Hanover Institute raised more than $1 million combined in 2008, much of which was used for campaign efforts and endorsements in the 2008 Association election.
The Association constitution reads that "every person who has ever matriculated as a full-time student in pursuit of a Dartmouth degree" at the undergraduate college or any of Dartmouth's three graduate schools "shall become a member for life" of the Association.
The Association has no jurisdiction, however, over candidates' friends or associates outside the alumni community. As such, Association campaign finance reforms could be nullified if most election spending comes from third parties instead of candidates.
Association President John Mathias '69, who was re-elected this month, is at the helm of the organization that could discuss and advance the parity issue with the Board, Before parity can be achieved, the alumni lawsuit filed against the College must be ended, Mathias told The Dartmouth last week, and the ever-increasing levels of alumni campaign financing should be limited.
Because last year's election reform study committee determined that campaign finance reform was politically untenable, official emphasis on the reforms as an important step prior to a decision on parity could slow down or halt the addition of new elected Board seats.
Opponents of campaign finance reform have argued that limiting campaign spending would reduce petition candidates' ability to win elections, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Although such changes are not strict prerequisites for the continuation of parity restoration discussions with the Board, both would contribute to the creation of an "atmosphere" in which the Board is more willing to implement parity, Mathias said. Mathias rejected the view that campaign finance reform is motivated by a secret agenda to limit petition candidates' power, he said.
Although he has not discussed the issue with the Board, Mathias said that his "sense" from the Board's 2007 governance report is that the Board is reluctant to add alumni-elected seats in order to restore parity since more seats would lead to more increasingly expensive campaigns.
