Dartmouth's Wright Says He Won't Retire in E-Mail (Correct)
2007-03-08 18:23 (New York)


    (Corrects to delete statement in first paragraph that
Wright was responding to dissident alumni.)

By Brian K. Sullivan
    March 8 (Bloomberg) -- Dartmouth College President James
Wright, responding to a report in the college newspaper that he
was planning to retire, said he has no intention to do so.
    In a Feb. 28 e-mail sent to faculty, students and alumni
obtained by Bloomberg News, Wright, 67, said assertions that the
new trustees will name a new president ``will likely prove to be
correct -- someday.''
    The e-mail was written to correct an impression created in
a Feb. 16 article in the student-run The Dartmouth, spokesman
Roland Adams Jr. said in an interview. The article paraphrased
Sherry Oberg, a candidate for the school's Board of Trustees, as
saying ``that the impending resignation of college President
Wright is an important issue facing the board.''
    Wright wrote in his e-mail, ``While I may look my age, I am
not yet ready to act on it. So let us hold off on the transition
planning.'' The 1,868-word e-mail also covered topics ranging
from visiting veterans to the school's proposed mission
statement.

                       Board of Trustees

    The article and e-mail come amid efforts by anti-Wright
alumni to put representatives on the college's Board of
Trustees, which may select the next president of the Hanover,
New Hampshire, school, the smallest of the eight Ivy League
colleges. Elections to replace one trustee begin April 1.
    Alumni of Dartmouth, founded in 1769, include chief
executive officers of some of the world's largest companies.
Jeffrey Immelt, 51, chairman and chief executive officer of
General Electric Co. is a 1978 graduate, and U.S. Treasury
Secretary Henry Paulson, 60, who previously ran Goldman Sachs
Group Inc., graduated 10 years earlier.
    Alumni elect half the trustees on the 18-member board.
Dartmouth's pro-administration Alumni Council offers a slate of
candidates for election, and any alumni dissatisfied with that
slate are allowed to run for election if they can get 500 peers
to sign a petition on their behalf.
    In past elections, three candidates nominated by petition
have defeated those endorsed by the council.

                      Call for Resignation

    In March 2006, alumnus Joseph Asch wrote a column in the
student-run The Dartmouth calling for Wright to resign.
    ``The trustees must then put into place a confident,
forceful president and a lean administration made up of men and
women who are able to keep good faculty,'' wrote Asch, a member
of the class of 1979.
    Asch, who has supported petition candidates, declined to
comment today.
    In the e-mail, Wright inserted himself into this year's
election by directly challenging claims by current petition
candidate Stephen Smith, a University of Virginia law professor,
a dispute reported by The Dartmouth.
    Other candidates include Richard Alderson, chief executive
officer of Major League Baseball's San Diego Padres; Sherri
Oberg, co-founder, president and Chief Executive of Watertown,
Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company Acusphere Inc., and
John Wolf, president of Eisenhower Fellowships.

                         Citing Issues

    ``It does not, however, advance the college to make
allegations or misstate the facts,'' Wright wrote, without
naming Smith. ``Dartmouth classes are getting smaller; faculty
are as committed to teaching students and to teaching as they
have ever been; the Greek system is thriving.''
    On his Web site, Smith has criticized the administration's
support of athletics, dedication to free speech and the size of
the school's bureaucracy, among other issues.
    Dartmouth has the 21st-largest endowment in the U.S.,
according to the National Association of College and University
Business Officers, which tallies the school's fund at $3
billion. In addition to its undergraduate school, with about
4,100 students, Dartmouth is also home to the Tuck School of
Business, Thayer School of Engineering and its medical school.

--Editor: Holdcraft.

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http://www.dartmouth.edu. To calculate the cost of a college
education, see {EF <GO>}. For education-related functions,
click {EDUC <GO>}.