An Alumni Constitution Clarification
By Martha Hennessey, Hanover, N.H.
Published on Monday, May 22, 2006
To the Editor:
I want to commend The Dartmouth for accurately reviewing most of the details in the May 19 article on the Alumni Council ("Alumni Council to convene, vote on alumni constitution overhaul"). There is one clarification that I believe is important to make, however. The article states that, "One potentially controversial provision requires alumni candidates for the Board of Trustees to pass through a nominating committee, and disallows voters to choose more than one candidate."
The truth is that the Nominating Committee and petition candidates for alumni trustee positions will be elected in the same way that they are now; all 66,000 plus alumni can vote for one or as many of the candidates as they would like. This has not changed. The Alumni Governance Task Force, of which I am a member, investigated a variety of voting methods, hearing expert opinions and listening to the sentiments of the alumni.
Our decision was to stay with the current system, which allows voting for one, several or all of the candidates. Again, thank you for covering this important topic, and I hope that all alumni will become familiar with the proposed constitution and will vote in the fall.