AoA candidates publish platforms
By Stephen Kirkpatrick
Published on Thursday, March 4, 2010
Correction appended
The question of restoring parity between alumni-elected and Board-selected members of the Board of Trustees dominated Association of Alumni candidate statements recently posted on the Vox the Vote web site. The four-week long elections to determine the Association’s executive board will begin March 10.
J. Michael Murphy ’61, the leader of “Dartmouth United,” the slate of petition candidates that filed in January to enter the election and challenge members of the current Board, said restoring parity on the Board of Trustees is the most important issue of the election.
Murphy was defeated in his 2008 bid for the Association by current Association President John Mathias ’69.
“I think there is a need for some clear communication of how harmful the parity decision has been,” Murphy said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
The petition slate seeks to reverse the Board of Trustees’ 2007 decision to increase the number of Board-appointed members from eight to 16, ending parity that previously existed between alumni-elected and Board-appointed trustees.
Following the 2007 decision, the Association filed a lawsuit against the Board of Trustees in September 2007, arguing that a decision made in 1891 to maintain parity was legally binding.
In the 2008 spring election for the Association’s executive board, alumni voted in the “Unity” slate of candidates — led by Mathias — which had run on a platform of ending the lawsuit. In June 2008, the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice. A lawsuit with the same intention of restoring parity, backed by a separate group of alumni, was filed in November 2008, but was dismissed by the Grafton County Superior Court in January 2008.
The controversy over the parity agreement has divided alumni, Murphy said, adding that he believes the debate has coincided with a decrease in alumni involvement and financial contributions to the College.
In an interview with The Dartmouth, Mathias said the Association has continued to meet with the Board in order to try and increase the number of elected trustees.
Mathias added that lawsuits were not an appropriate means of achieving progress.
“The hallmark of what we propose is to continue civility and collegiality and persuasion as the appropriate means for alumni to address their political differences — and not lawsuits, which is people yelling at each other and calling each other names and insisting upon having their way,” he said.
While Mathias had promised to work with trustees on Board parity, he has made little progress in doing so, Murphy said, and almost no time has been spent on restoring parity in the last two years.
Murphy said he hopes the Association will be able to restore parity on the Board if the petition slate were elected, observing that ten of the current trustees were not in office when the decision to end parity was made three years ago.
“We accept the fact that the alumni are divided and so our mission is to make them united again, and if we can ever get parity restored, we will,” he said.
Murphy said the petition slate is not associated with the alumni who brought the second lawsuit.
“[The lawsuit] is not relevant to this campaign,” he said. “It’s a red herring, a smoke screen, but we’re not connected to it.”
The Association also seeks to continue its work toward reforming its election and campaign finance rules, Mathias added.
Last year, an Association committee explored a series of increasingly expensive and contentious elections, including a race for an alumni-elected seat on the Board of Trustees in which top candidates spent over $100,000 in the course of campaigning.
Mathias, who was a member of the Association review committee, previously stated that alumni agreed that candidates should not have to spend large sums in the hope of winning an election, although many disagreed that more restrictions should be implemented to address the issue.
The committee ultimately proposed a reduction in the length of the election voting period and raised the word limit of Board campaign statements as a way to mitigate costs, which was ultimately passed. The current race for the Association’s executive slate, in addition to the current race for two alumni-elected seats on the Board of Trustees, are the first campaigns to operate under these new regulations.
Staff writer Greg Berger contributed to the reporting of this article.
The original version of this article stated that word limits on campaign statements were raised for College campaigns generally. In fact, the limit was raised only for candidates in Board of Trustees races.
John Mathias now makes token statements about meeting with the Board to discuss increasing the number of alumni-elected trustees. Yet minutes of closed meetings with administration officials implicate John in their strategizing to “end parity forever”. Not surprising considering his past comment on our Association’s discussion forum:
“I do not think parity is a good idea at all.” …. By john mathias ‘69, at 11/16/2007 9:53 AM
Alumni should keep this in mind when they decide between he and Mike Murphy.
In another comment there, Mathias admits spending thousands of dollars on his own election. So Asch spent money mailing information to voters. The Administration needed to spend a similar sum covering their mailing announcing the council’s candidates. And they are not flying around the country campaigning for free. Let’s stop focusing on the costs of communications, and spend the time on more substantive issues. Were candidates in prior elections right to be concerned about structural problems in the administration? Is Asch correct regarding student concerns for dorm (dis)continuity and course availability?
By the way, have you all noticed that Mathias, in his constitutional role as chair of the election-rule-setting ballot committee, has not recused himself in the matter of his own election. Further, in his role as moderator of we alumni’s discussion forum, John has elected to block all new posts and discussion in these weeks prior to HIS election, without giving any reason! Alumni must be more vocal in demanding the elimination of such conflicts-of-interest.
By Timothy A. Dreisbach 71 on Mar 4 | 9:28 am
The petitioners invented “parity,” and I wish they would un-invent it. The only reason it is controversial is because they keep bringing it up. It’s a made-up concept and the loss of parity is a made-up problem. And really, how can they promise that negotiations will do anything about parity now that two lawsuits have failed?
By alum. on Mar 4 | 10:14 am
It is and has been obvious that Mathias can’t be trusted. Mathias says, we can’t have lawsuits, we can’t have “people yelling at each other calling each other names and insisting upon having their own way.” Really? IS that what occurs in lawsuits? I hope that Mathias isn’t a lawyer because if that’s what happens in his lawsuits, I wouldn’t want to be his client. With Mathias' representation, it gives me the uneasy feeling that I get when I hear Washington, DC politicains say that they are doing everything that they can to cut spending as they throw another trillion on the debt. Mathias says he doesn’t think that parity is a good idea but he is “working hard” to get more elected representation on the board….not. The AoA, Alumni Relations and the Board of Trustees are a circus of allegations and misinformation and it isn’t coming from the elected Trustees.
By Brandon Lachner on Mar 4 | 4:13 pm
The first lawsuit did not fail; it was withdrawn by the Association. In fact, a close reading of the Court’s rejection of the motion to dismiss, which allowed it to proceed, reveals the merits of the case. But that is in the past. It is time to move forward with new discussions with new trustees.
By Timothy A. Dreisbach 71 on Mar 4 | 7:51 pm
The Motion to Dismiss only covered whether the plaintiff’s claims could be dismissed out of hand. It did not cover the merits of the case and the Court did not decide that any facts supported the lawsuit.
What I meant is the lawsuits failed to achieve their goal of maintaining parity. The discussions with trustees before, during and after the lawsuits have had no effect on parity. Future discussions will not either.
By alum. on Mar 5 | 9:44 am
Do you understand? You can find the lawsuit information on the Internet.
By alum. on Mar 9 | 1:28 pm