Dartblog

Last Tuesday Phil Aubart ‘10 wrote an excellent column in The Dartmouth, the daily campus newspaper, which can be read here. The column calls on the new Association of Alumni leadership to make good on their campaign platform of “unity” and proffers an excellent suggestion to this effect: a survey of all alumni to determine how high the level of support is for parity.

In an insightful response (far more timely than the lag with which I am apologetically posting here) J. Michael Murphy ‘61 writes,

The burden on the recently-elected Executive Committee of the Association of Alumni to demonstrate “performance” in negotiations with the Board of Trustees is even stronger that suggested by Phil Aubart (“What Now?”, June 24, 2008). In addition to the Dartmouth Undying campaign statement quoted in Mr. Aubart’s article about “working constructively with the Trustees”, the Dartmouth Undying group also admitted, “…some Unity Slate members disagree with the Trustees’ decision.” Most dramatically, John Mathias, the leader of their slate and new Association president, wrote in a letter, “What the Trustees have done yesterday, they can undo tomorrow if a suitably persuasive case can be made to them.”

Taken as a whole, these and other statements created the expectation
in the minds of many alumni voters that we could have our cake and eat it,
too — i.e., end the contentious lawsuit, but also negotiate some kind of
restoration of parity with the Trustees. And in Mr. Mathias, who is an
experienced, highly respected trial lawyer, the Association has the ideal
person to make a “suitably persuasive case.” Will we see performance on
this hope, or were these just hollow promises to get elected? We wait and
watch.