Support Dartmouth United

In addition to Dartmouth’s trustee elections, which I wrote about here and here, alumni are also electing the executive committee of the Association of Alumni. My friend Mike Murphy has assembled a fine slate which, this time around, is unencumbered by the presence of this cranky conservative blogger. The slate is called Dartmouth United. This is a letter I wrote to Dartmouth alums — and Scott and John joined — endorsing Mike’s slate:

I write to express my support for the Dartmouth United slate of candidates in the election of the 2010 Association of Alumni Executive Committee.
Mike Murphy ’61 has put together an outstanding slate. Electing it would promote the twin goals of restoring parity between appointed and alumni-elected candidates on the Board of Trustees and restoring unity among Dartmouth alumni.
I have known Mike since we ran together for the AoA Board two years ago. His commitment to Dartmouth and to the cause of parity is unwavering. As importantly, Mike knows how to promote his views civilly, in ways that maximize their likelihood of being accepted.
Mike’s slate shares these qualities. For example, Dartmouth United includes four impressive recent graduates: James Baehr ’05, Noah Reiner ’06, Diane Ellis ’08, and Emily Esfahani Smith ’09.
I know James and Noah and have corresponded with Diane. In addition, I’ve admired the writing of Emily, who was a Bartley Fellow at the Wall Street Journal. Along with Mike and the other members the Dartmouth United slate, they form a compelling team.
This team offers the best hope of restoring parity. When the Board decided to end parity, in violation of its agreement with the AoA, it questioned whether Dartmouth Alumni are capable of electing the kind of Trustees required in today’s world. But the ability of Dartmouth Alumni to elect first-rate Trustees – as they have done – should be obvious to anyone who has attended the College. And the Board’s doubts on this score have seriously undermined alumni relations.
John Mathias, the incumbent AoA president who leads the opposing slate, promised to unite Dartmouth alumni by working to restore parity. Yet, in almost two years, he has made no apparent progress. He and his colleagues are either unwilling or unable convincingly to make the case for parity to the Board. In either event, it is time to change the leadership of the AoA.
For these reasons, I urge you strongly to consider supporting the Dartmouth United slate. My two colleagues at Power Line blog, John Hinderaker ’71 and Scott Johnson ’73, also endorse this slate for the similar reasons.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses