Welcome to college, freshmen. Welcome to the dorms, to the field, to the basement. You're bright, you're interesting, you're making loyal friends and worthy enemies. Over the next four years, you might experiment a bit, perhaps try "raging" all night, or becoming friends with the guy down the hall whose diet is composed entirely of marijuana and Hot Pockets. Some of you might experiment a lot, and wake up one day to find that you are the guy down the hall whose diet is composed entirely of marijuana and Hot Pockets.
And you'll talk about it. If you're like most college students, you'll talk constantly. You'll bounce new ideas off of each other, you'll wax poetic, you'll shoot the shit. You'll curse too loudly, and too often, and for almost no reason at all aside from the fact that your parents aren't around to tell you not to. You'll talk about things of substance, you'll talk about nothing, you'll talk to hear the sound of your own voice. All that talk! There's BlitzMail, blitz lists, blitz bombs. Bored at Baker, Facebook, Ivygate. You can think, you can lie, you can brag. You're old enough to have opinions but not so old that you're expected to stick to them.
Isn't college is great time to chat?
One thing that none of us seem to be able to talk about is the Board of Trustees. Recently, the Trustees have been doing a lot for talking, too, but the majority of the student body seems to have little idea what events took place this past month. So, I learned a little bit about the Board this week, and I'll sum it up here for you, all nice-like. Think of these as your crib notes for conversations yet to come.
The controversy surrounding the changes to the Board began with a growing group of conservative-minded alumni who believe that Dartmouth has, in short, let the "old traditions fail." This alumni faction made its presence clear around Dartmouth starting in 2004 when they got a wave of petition candidates elected to the Board. T.J. Rodgers was the first to run by petition as opposed to nomination, and won. Rogers' success inspired three other successful petition campaigns from Steven Smith '88 (former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas), Todd Zwyicki '88 (libertarian law professor), and Peter Robinson '79 (author, How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life).
So that's the way they all became the petition bunch. The rest of the Board, though also predominantly right wing, has been somewhat conducive to Dartmouth encouraging faculty research and a progressive curriculum. The petitions think that these shifts are eroding the College's educational standards, as well as its emphasis on undergraduate education. The opinions of the trustees are a big deal because the Trustees appoint our faculty, determine our curriculum, and buy and sell college land. Most importantly, the Board of Trustees has final say in all laws and ordinances regarding the College.
The President of the College and the Governor of New Hampshire are automatically Board members, and in addition to them there were, until recently, eight members that are appointed by the Board itself, and eight who are elected by the alumni. The ability of alumni to elect half the trustees is something of a Dartmouth trademark in academia these days. It came about in 1891, when the alumni bailed Dartmouth out of financial trouble in exchange for five of what was at the time 10 seats on the Board. The Board's decision earlier this month expanded the Board from 18 to 26 members, which added eight more appointed trustees while maintaining the elected trustees at eight.
The important thing about the new Board, then, is that it now appoints 66 percent of its own members, as opposed to the 50/50 split between appointed and elected members that was formerly in place.
Granted, this sounds more like an SAT question than headline-making news. Cutting the alumni's proportion of the Board, however, is an intensely political act. Most colleges of similar sizes have far larger boards. Many alumni, however, argue that the changes will dilute the alumni presence at the College and weaken Dartmouth's traditionally strong ties (both figurative and financial) to its graduates. Those who support the petition trustees see it as a deliberate attempt to drown their voices out, and they have responded with plenty of talk -- petitions, websites, and full-page advertisements in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
For the time being, we'll have to wait and see if the changes in the size of the Board have a lasting or visible effect on the College on the Hill. In the mean time, however, chances are we'll have plenty to talk about.
