Voting is still ongoing in the Dartmouth Alumni Association election. The latest twist in the Dartmouth Association of Alumni election process is that the pro-Board-Packing slate is paying Dartmouth students to call alumni on its behalf. Apparently it is easy money:
I did it today and it was super easy. Hours 7-10:30 pm = $100. All you do is read a prompt sheet and call women Alumni. Martha Beattie is a super sweet woman and bought pizza an Vitamin water for us! We are going to call again on Monday and Tuesday (same hours). If you want to help please just come to the Coldwell Banker House (yellow house across from Psi U) Mon or Tues between 7-10:30pm. If you are concerned about calling because you don’t now what you are representing you can go to the org’s website: dartmouthundying.org and read up on the initiatives.
And remember as you read this that according to my colleagues on the Board it is the supporters of parity that supposedly “have politicized Dartmouth elections and have brought Washington-style politics to trusteeship.” As Joe Malchow observes, “Of course, since these students are working against their own interests—in favor of a plan that would limit their voices—one is not surprised that they need to be paid.”
In other news, the Byrne family–longtime and generous supporters of Dartmouth–have announced their opposition to the Board-packing plan and support for the pro-parity slate. I think they sum up the situation pretty well: “We urge you to vote for the Parity Slate. If we don’t elect them, your vote will never matter again”:
The College-sponsored slate has the full tools of the College
propaganda machine; the Parity team do not, and must rely on partial,
obsolete mailing lists. That kind of undemocratic approach is key to
why we feel continued Alumni – elected involvement at the 50% level is
vital to the future of the College.The first tool of the propagandist is the ad hominem attack. They don’t
really try to defend the indefensible, namely the implementation of the
Board-packing plan by stealth. Instead, they label their opponents,
especially the four petition trustees, as extremists, bent on taking
over Dartmouth.We are not extremists, and we have never met the petition Trustees or
any of the Petition slate. We are two brothers, who love Dartmouth and
have consistently supported the College for many years. Frankly, we
expect that there would be important disagreements between us if we did
meet the petition Trustees. But these things are clear:1) Because a few trustees got elected by petition, who had
differing views to those of the leadership, the college tried to change
governance by referendum, to make it harder for petition trustees to get
elected. They lost that referendum.2) President Wright wrote to us shortly thereafter, promising an
end to the matter.3) The matter was not, in fact, dropped, and a five man governance
committee managed to plan and narrowly pass a resolution to turn
Dartmouth’s Trustee’s Board into a self-electing elite, permanently.
The courts will decide whether this was a breach of contract. However
we don’t need a court to tell us it was a heavy-handed and undemocratic
thing to do.4) The extremists are the ones who breached a hundred year old
deal because a handful of trustees had views they didn’t like.We urge you to vote for the Parity Slate. If we don’t elect them, your
vote will never matter again.
If you are a Dartmouth alum and haven’t voted yet, you still have time. A sample ballot for the Dartmouth Parity slate is available here.
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