Dartblog

The Trustees will be in town this week for their quarterly meet-and-greet, wine-and-dine, move-and-quickly-approve meeting. They should do more.

The role of trustees does not include micro-management; interfering in the everyday life of the College is not in their brief (nor within their competence). However, in evaluating the College’s President and assisting him in guiding the institution, micro-investigation should be a part of each Trustee’s responsabilities.

In this respect, the role of a Trustee in an academic institution is different from that of a corporate Director. The goal in a college is not ever-increasing profit, which can be discerned from honestly kept accounts. To function effectively, a Trustee needs qualitative information that cannot come from black-on-white pages. Is the faculty encouraged to innovate and bring forth ideas? Is high-quality work being rewarded in a prompt and fair manner? Is there excitement in the air as new intiatives are supported and rewarded? Is excellence really the goal of all endeavors? Is the administration functioning efficiently and telling the truth..?

In listening to many Trustee speeches over the years, and in watching the Board’s time-wasting performance at a student Q&A several years ago, it is clear to this observer that the great majority of the information that Trustees receive about Dartmouth comes from the President’s briefing books. That is not enough.

Let me reiterate a suggestion that I made last May. The Trustees have to get out into the Dartmouth community and talk to members at all levels — starting with the faculty. However, chatting at cocktail parties is not what I mean. Micro-investiagation has to be done the right way.

At each future Trustee meeting, the members of the Board should set aside a full day to speak with faculty members. Each Trustee should contact an individual professor and ask to meet in that person’s departmental office. The Trustees should invite the prof to ask several faculty colleagues to join them — anyone of the professor’s choice. A small group of academics in the privacy of an individual office will tell Trustees the same things that they have been telling alumni for years.

What have they been saying? If you are a Trustee, why don’t you go and find out for yourself. The faculty’s message will be quite different from what you have been hearing from the administration over the past decade. And if you listen closely, you will be equipped with information that will enable you to do your job a whole lot better than your fellow Trustees have done in the past.