Asch garners mixed alum. reaction

By Greg Berger, The Dartmouth Staff

Published on Thursday, January 21, 2010

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Potential petition trustee candidate Joe Asch ’79 has solicited mixed reaction from alumni on his platform regarding parity on the Board of Trustees, the management of the College administration and his frequent posts on the Dartblog web site. Asch announced on Wednesday that he is in the process of gaining the necessary 500 alumni signatures to run as a petition candidate, The Dartmouth previously reported.

Asch, who plans to oppose Alumni Council-nominated candidate John Replogle ’88, said he supports maintaining an equal number of alumni-elected and Board-selected trustees because he considers an 1891 agreement to preserve parity on the Board binding, he said in an interview with The Dartmouth.

Replogle suggested a possible solution to the parity debate in an interview with The Dartmouth on Wednesday, proposing that the Board add one member of each graduating class — to be selected by the outgoing class — to the Board to serve for one four-year term.

“I think [this idea] has the kind of innovative approach we need to solve this issue,” Replogle said. “I think the matter [of parity] could be solved without lawsuits, improve our governance and create a great opportunity for our recent graduates to contribute back to the College by sharing their own insights on the Dartmouth experience. That is a real win-win.”

T.J. Rodgers ’70, a current trustee and former petition candidate, said that although he likes both Asch and Replogle, Asch’s definitive stance in favor of parity pushed him to support Asch. The quality of candidates nominated by the Council has improved in response to increased competition from previously successful petition candidates, Rodgers said.

“I had an easier time of it than [Asch] does,” Rodgers said.

John MacGovern ’80 said he preferred Asch’s firm stance on parity. MacGovern is the founder of the Hanover Institute, which has been instrumental in funding two lawsuits against the College which have unsuccessfully attempted to restore parity on the Board.

“On the issue of parity, if [Asch] is supporting parity and Replogle is trying to stand on the fence, I would definitely support [Asch],” MacGovern said.

Several College alumni — including opposition candidate Replogle — have expressed concern about Asch’s understanding of a trustee’s role due to his suggestions for ensuring prudent budgetary practices ­, which include reducing the number of administrators and limiting excessive spending on benefits programs for College employees.

“There is a difference between the role of a Board member and that of an administrator, and if you look into [Asch’s] blog posts, what he likes to do is get deep into the details of, for example, how time sheets are managed at the College. I do not intend to tell [College] President [Jim Yong] Kim how he needs to manage time sheets,” Replogle said.

Morton Kondracke ’60, the Council-nominated candidate for the other open alumni-elected seat on the Board in the upcoming election, shared Replogle’s concerns.

“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 in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. “[Asch] is a provocative blogger; [Replogle] will be a productive trustee.”

In response to the criticism, Asch told The Dartmouth that he understands “the distinction between micromanagement and micro-investigation.”

“Trustees should not be micromanaging the College but trustees need to understand and micro-investigate the College in order to appropriately oversee the administration,” Asch said. “That hasn’t been done sufficiently by the trustees and as a result they have repeatedly gotten into budget difficulties.”

John Mathias ’69, current Association of Alumni president, said that Asch’s proposals to cut the College budget through layoffs ignores the human costs of such a policy.

“I think [Asch] is a fine guy,” Mathias said. “I don’t agree with his politics. I certainly do not favor laying off people as the answer — [it is] very simplistic and not at all correct.”

Replogle said that although he agrees with Asch’s opinion that the size of the administration has grown at an unsustainable rate, layoffs are not the only element of the budget that should be reformed. The cost of facilities operations and management has doubled over the past 10 years, Replogle said. If the College can find a way to manage its facilities in a “more cost-efficient manner,” then it will close the budget gap it faces today, he said.

Replogle raised the concern that Asch’s frequent postings on Dartblog — many of which criticize the College — would be improper actions for a trustee.

“Trustees have a responsibility to build the enterprise — they need to be independent but they shouldn’t be adversarial,” Replogle said. “I think that daily attacks on the College set the wrong dynamic for a member of the Board of Trustees.”

Asch explained that if he were elected to the Board, he “would not be public in voicing [his] concerns.” He added that his contributions to Dartblog are proper for his current role as an alumnus of the College.

In an interview with The Dartmouth, Asch suggested that he would limit his campaign to a web site, Facebook page, e-mails and a single mailing to the Dartmouth community that would be sent along with statements from Replogle and Kondracke if they agreed to the same limitations.

Replogle said that he would not agree to Asch’s suggestion because Asch recently completed a mailing to the alumni body with a two-page statement about his platforms, something Replogle said he has not yet done.

“I will run my race — [Asch] can run his,” Replogle said.

Replogle said that he has accepted, and will continue to accept, donations to his campaign “exclusively from members of the Dartmouth alumni body.”

Asch told The Dartmouth that he will personally fund all of his own campaign efforts.