Commentary
Dartmouth Undying Issues a Position Statement
on the Upcoming Trustee Elections
Dartmouth Undying’s mission is to unite the Dartmouth family in support of Dartmouth College and its mission. One of the ways we do that is by enabling alumni to participate in electing responsible and constructive Trustees and alumni organization leaders through fair elections. In this spirit, we will provide information to you that will help you understand the issues and will familiarize you with the candidates for any of the open governance positions. We have no role in the selection of candidates, but consider our role of energizing alumni to participate in the voting process critical to the welfare of the College. We urge all alumni to know the merits of candidates for office and to VOTE when the time comes.
The Board of Trustees has established clear criteria for the selection and conduct of Trustees of the College.. Dartmouth Undying will urge all alumni to vote in the upcoming election for those candidates they believe will best serve the College, using these guidelines. Dartmouth Undying expects every candidate to have demonstrated personal accomplishments that will serve the needs of the College and to have shown support for the College with constructive and positive words and deeds.
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Dartmouth Financial Issues at the Forefront
It is not within the mission of Dartmouth Undying to engage in the day-to-day governance of Dartmouth College. We do not believe that we should either tell or suggest how the College should administrate, educate or operate. We have no intention of broadening our charter in this regard.
We do believe, however, it is within our responsibility to inform alumni and others who have shown an interest in our organization about significant issues facing Dartmouth. One such issue, which is prominently in the news right now, is the financial health of the College. Because of a serious drop in the endowment of the College (see also the last paragraph here), a series of action plans are underway.
On December 1, 2009 President Kim addressed the Dartmouth community with his financial plan for the College leading up to the 250th anniversary of Dartmouth in 2019. His forty-five minute slide presentation was followed by a Q&A session for those in Alumni Hall and it has been posted now on the budget website http://budget.dartmouth.edu/.
On January 15, 2010 President Kim gave a second presentation, and update on the work of the College to address serious financial issues. The next step is to meet with the Trustees the first week in February at their next regularly scheduled meeting.
We further suggest you keep informed about current financial discussions by going back to this link for more detail: http://budget.dartmouth.edu/. This page, titled “Strategic Budget Reduction and Investment” will lead you to other pages of interest about the College financial plans.
Also, you can see Dartmouth audited financial statements for the past eight years by going to this link: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~control/reporting/ppp.html. This will help you put all the numbers in perspective.
Finally, because Dartmouth is not alone in the crisis created by lower endowment values, there is a wealth of information about other colleges and universities here:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&q=university+endowment+losses&start=0&sa=N
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INFORMATION ABOUT UPCOMING ALUMNI TRUSTEE ELECTIONS - 2010
For the past two years, election of Alumni Trustees has been frozen by the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees. In the fall of 2007, the Board asked both the Alumni Council (DAC) and the Association of Alumni (AOA) to amend their constitutions to allow one person - one vote balloting for all alumni trustee elections. This has been accomplished and the Trustees announced earlier in 2009 that elections may resume in 2010. Over the next three years a number of alumni trustee seats will open because of expiring terms of current trustees. In 2010 there are two open seats. After a thorough vetting process, the DAC has announced their candidate for each open seat as indicated on the Home Page of the Dartmouth Undying website. They will be presented to the alumni for a vote and the election will be held electronically and by mail for the four week period from March 10, 2010 to April 7, 2010.
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ASSOCIATION OF ALUMNI (AOA) ELECTION INFORMATION
There will also be an election of officers and executive committee members of the AOA in 2010. This election will be simultaneous with the alumni trustee election. All seats are open, but current officers may run for reelection. The slate of candidates for this eleven-person body was announced on December 21, 2009.
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