The Alumni Council Returns Fire

The Trustee election process is an open process controlled entirely by alumni, without College influence, Andrea Lordan ’86, chairwoman of the Alumni Council’s Trustee nominating committee, wrote in today’s Daily Dartmouth.

To imply that this process is one conducted by the College, and thus indirectly that these candidates are not independent of the administration, is simply wrong. It shows either a lack of understanding of the alumni-driven nature of the process that results in these nominations, or a willful attempt to mislead readers to achieve the author’s agenda.

While many alumni would like to believe this, they see the Alumni Council as a self-perpetuating institution which elects large numbers of its own members and cooperates extensively with the College. The Council operates under extensive College supervision: fully 25 Dartmouth employees attend meetings either as “secretaries” or as voting members, and there are full-time alumni relations staffers assigned to manage the Council.