The Board of Trustees confirmed the election of Gail Koziara Boudreaux '82 and R. William Burgess '81, who won uncontested trustee races in an election ending on April 6, during the Board's termly meeting on Saturday. Approximately 15.5 percent of alumni who share their contact information with the College voted either online or by mail in the uncontested election, Diana Lawrence, director of communications for Alumni Relations, said in an interview with The Dartmouth. Of the 10,572 alumni who voted, 9,140 voted for Boudreaux and 9,016 voted for Burgess, according to Lawrence.
Boudreaux and Burgess will replace exiting trustees Christine Bucklin '84 and Jose Fernadez '77.
College alumni also elected a new executive committee for the Association of Alumni in another uncontested election. John Daukas '84, who received 10,432 votes, will serve as president of the Association, Lawrence said.
Boudreaux did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
Burgess said in an interview with The Dartmouth that he plans to work on ensuring the College's fiscal stability and the mental and physical health of students. He added that he wanted to learn more about strategic planning, which he said is "critically important" in order to understand what the College should focus on as its surrounding environment changes.
Burgess said his general focus will be to improve the quality of Dartmouth for students.
"I want to do everything I can to make Dartmouth all it can be and provide a tremendous educational environment for students who are going to go out and have a really positive impact on our society," he said.
Burgess said he needs time to work with the current trustees before announcing any specific initiatives.
"I've got a lot of learning to do," he said. "I will try to be helpful where I can and roll up my sleeves and get to work."
Burgess, who will not attend Board meetings until July, said he is excited to learn from the "impressive people" currently on the Board.
He said that while he hopes to gain a better understanding of the issue of parity, it is not as high a priority as other challenges facing the College.
Since 2007, the College has faced two alumni-instigated lawsuits brought against the Board in response to the Board's 2007 decision to end parity between alumni-elected and charter-selected trustees by adding eight additional charter-selected trustee seats. Both suits argued that alumni are guaranteed parity by an 1891 agreement, which the plaintiffs consider to be legally binding. The first lawsuit, brought by the Association's executive board in September 2007, was dismissed with prejudice in June 2008 when alumni elected a new executive board that opposed the lawsuit. The second lawsuit was brought by an independent group of alumni in November 2008, but was dismissed by res judicata in January 2010. The group is currently appealing this decision to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
"To me, the whole issue of parity relative to the concerns that we all face with higher education such as fiscal discipline is lower down the list," he said.
Burgess said he is "concerned" by rising tuition costs, which rose by 5.9 percent this year. Although he praised the College's financial aid program, Burgess said he plans to work with the Board and the administration to "reign in" tuition costs in the future.
"I am comforted by the fact that our alumni have been so generous to the College to create an opportunity for so many kids to go to Dartmouth at a much discounted cost of the education," Burgess said.
Burgess also hopes to help facilitate a campus dialogue regarding alcohol and sexual abuse.
"The bottom line on use and abuse of alcohol and sexual abuse is more students on the campus at Dartmouth need to be exercising leadership and looking out for each other," Burgess said. "In a lot of ways you are your brother's and sister's keeper."
Boudreaux has also stressed the importance of "open conversation" regarding both issues, The Dartmouth previously reported.
In light of recent controversies surrounding the resignation of minority female administrators at the College including acting Dean of the College Sylvia Spears, former Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Students Colleen Larimore and Samantha Ivery, former assistant dean of student life, advisor to black students and acting director of the Center for Women and Gender Burgess said increasing faculty diversity is a complicated issue and should be a "significant goal" of the College.
Daukas said he is excited to work with the rest of the executive council, which includes alumni from a wide variety of class years, different parts of the country and many different College organizations.
While one of his main responsibilities will be to manage trustee elections, Daukas said a major priority will be to examine ways to lower the cost of running for a trustee position.
"I'd like to explore that further and see if we're getting to a place where people can agree on a way to make it so that candidates don't have to spend literally tens of thousands if not over a hundred thousand or hundreds of thousands of dollars to get elected," he said.
Daukas, along with current Association president John Mathias '69, served on the now-defunct Association Election Reform Study Committee, which formed in 2009 to assess campaign finance rules for Board and Association executive committee elections. Although a majority of alumni surveyed by the committee which examined ways to reduce candidates' financial burden thought campaign costs were too high, the committee could not agree on a solution, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Daukas also said he is "open-minded" about potential changes to the Alumni Council constitution that would permit the Council to nominate a second Trustee candidate if, like this year, no petition candidates decided to run.
In 2008, the Council amended its constitution to permit the nomination of up to two candidates, instead of three, according to Daukas. The Council also replaced a voting system that allowed alumni to vote for multiple candidates with a "one person, one vote" system, Daukas said.
