>Date: 21 Oct 2005 17:22:12 EDT >From: Amy M. Chan >Subject: URGENT-PLEASE READ AND SPREAD THE WORD >To: (Recipient list suppressed)

PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO ANY ALUMNI YOU KNOW WHO ARE BACK ON CAMPUS AND ENCOURAGE THEM TO VOTE AGAINST THE PETITION SLATE CANDIDATES . THANKS!

Hello Everyone,

Unfortunately, there is a lot at stake on this alumni vote on SUNDAY at 11am in Alumni Hall. We just want to reiterate how important certain offices to this campus are (i.e. OBSA, OPAL, Advisor to Asian Students, Advisor to Latino Students, Cutter Shabazz, Native American Program, AAAS, LALACs, Women and Gender Studies and the list goes on). If these highly conservative alums are elected, they are certain to take aim at some of the offices, spaces, and departments that we hold dear. We cannot stress how important it is to spread the word on this issue. There are concerns being voiced by all sorts of forces on campus that recognize the value in diversity of race, ethnicity, political opinion, class, and academics.

While it might not be obvious from the advertisements these alums are putting out, there are some indications of what this slate means when they say, “support the preservation of Dartmouth as primarily a liberal arts college, with its resources concentrated toward achieving the highest level of undergraduate education.” According to the Hanover Institute’s website, this slate is committed to supporting the agenda set forth by T.J. Rodgers, Peter Robinson, and Todd Zywicki. Rodgers and Quentin Kopp (current petition slate candidate) have made their anti-diversity views known. They have accused Dartmouth of pandering to “fads instead of eternal verities”, referring to the gains in gender and ethnic studies. They have also charged the administration with unnecessary spending on diversity programs that train people to be “hyperaware of their differences and hypersensitive to their differences” (i.e. OPAL, the various advisor positions, IDE, affinity housing etc.). These gains in ethnic studies, gender studies, and the various resources for students of color, LGBT students, and women on campus are essential to maintianing a vibrant diversity on campus and fostering an informed dialogue on race, gender, class, and sexuality.

Please encourage alumni to go out to Alumni Hall this SUNDAY at 11am, and vote FOR the constitution proposed by the Alumni Governance Task Force and AGAINST the petition slate of candidates.

Be informed - read the following info and pass it on to Alums who are going to be up. Start a conversation with a random alum in the street. Do whatever you can. We need to make sure that Dartmouth continues to stand behind some of the things that make this college great, like diversity in all forms!!

Please contact any of us if you would like any more information!!

Bridgette Hylton ‘06
Echo Brown ‘06
Sarah Hackney ‘06
Anne Bellows ‘06
Marie Choi ‘06
Shawn Zhou ‘06
Amy Chan ‘06
Yanaisdys Baeza ‘06
Vivian Chung ‘07

More information:

Here is the issue at hand: (info courtesy of concerned Alums!)

First off, please encourage all alums who are on campus for Homecoming to vote and to participate in the Association of Alumni election for officers and discussion of a new proposed constitution on Sunday at 11am. Alums must be physically present to vote

In addition to the slate of candidates nominated by the official Nominating Committee, a group of petition candidates will be running in opposition to the new constitution. One of the petition candidates, Joe Asch ‘79, is noteworthy for his reactionary/right-wing agenda and his regular opinion pieces attacking the College administration in The D. Another candidate,
Alex Wilson ‘01, is a former Dartmouth Review staffer.

The success of the last three conservative candidates for Trustee (all by petition) suggests that conservative alumni are highly organized behind their candidates. If possible, please visit the following links to find out more, and consider participating in this weekend’s election.

The reactionary forces have been placing full-page ads in The Dartmouth and other local newspapers daily for almost a week now in an effort to get out the vote for their candidates; we need to make sure that the more moderate or liberal alums have a say in what happens on Sunday as well!

Ultimately at stake is the fate of the new progressive constitution that would merge the Alumni Association and the Alumni Council and, among other progressive changes, give each affiliated alumni groups.

The petition-nominated Alumni Association slate of officers has said that it will terminate negotiations on the new constitution if they are elected on Sunday.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Article on TJ Rodger’s and Quentin Kopp’s anti-diversity stance:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/16/BUG5T5LCM71.DTL&type=business

The Alumni meeting agenda is here:
http://alumni.dartmouth.edu/leadership/association/assoc_amtg.html

Information about the drafting of the new constitution, from the Alumni
Governance Task Force, is here:
http://alumni.dartmouth.edu/leadership/association/agtf-update.htm

The petition candidates’ website is here: http://www.daa-petition-slate.org/

The Hanover Institute (supporting petition candidates): http://hanoverinstitute.org/annualmeeting.htm