College Whistleblowers Denounce Trustee Conflicts to Government

May 21 2012

This space has regularly reported on the incompetence and malfeasance of the Dartmouth administration. While most of our reporting comes from public sources, a great deal of Dartblog's content has been provided by honest people on the College's payroll -- longtime staffers, past and present, who are disgusted by the conflicts of interest and self-dealing that have diverted the College from its educational mission.

Dartblog has now learned that a group of College insiders, who call themselves the Friends of Eleazar Wheelock, have written a whistleblower letter to numerous government figures and other institutions: NH Governor John Lynch, NH Attorney General Michael Delaney, Massachusetts House Judiciary Committee Chairs Cynthia Creem and Eugene O'Flaherty, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, Massachusetts Senator Patricia Jehlen and Massachusetts Representative Mike Moran (sponsors of a bill that would require enhanced disclosure of conflicts of interest, investment holdings, managers and fees, as well as other vital financial data from private colleges and universities), the Internal Revenue Service, the Service Employees International Union, the NH Department of Justice Charitable Trusts Unit, the Union Leader, and the New Hampshire Health and Education Facilities Authority.

The letter details how members of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees -- a Board dominated by MBA money managers, unlike other Ivy Boards -- and people in their circle have plundered the College's endowment, using it to fill the coffers of their investment funds. The details go far beyond the information contained in a Tellus Institute report and a Valley News series that were published last year.

While the conflict of interest of Trustees steering College money to their own enterprises is obvious, the effect on Dartmouth of these unwise decisions should also be noted. As Dartblog has previously described, the endowment's performance in the 1990's was the best in the Ivy League; during the past decade -- when these practices took flight -- it has been the worst.

Find the above-mentioned link regarding Pamela Joyner here.

Find the above-mentioned link regarding Leon Black here.

To download the entire letter as a pdf file, please click here.

At this time, it is unclear whether the various governmental authorities who have received the above communication have responded to it or initiated any kind of investigation.

Paris Diary: We Sure Eat a Lot of Bread

May 20 2012

Not an oil truck. No. A flour truck, parked in front of Béchu, our lovely local bakery. It makes two deliveries each week, pumping flour as if it were fuel into a large tank in the basement. Béchu buys about 150 quintales of flour each month; that's about one ton every two days. In our apartment across the street, we have bread on the table at lunch and dinner, usually a ficelle -- a small version of a baguette. We need it to go with cheese and to mop up sauce, and as an accompaniment throughout any meal.

Béchu's bread is often sold straight from the oven; the staff laughs when I grinningly complain that it is too hot. The bakery is also a place where the people behind the counter seem to remember every customer. Occasionally when I shop before a meal, I'll be told that we don't need any bread because my wife has already been by.

Oh The Places You'll Go on LSA/FSP

May 19 2012

We've long held the position that a Dartmouth foreign study program should be mandatory for students; today only 60% of undergrads take advantage of the College's wide range of options. Being comfortable in a foreign environment is an essential skill, and relieving crowding in Hanover would be helpful, too.

In the picture above, Dartmouth students viewed the royal carriages exhibited in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Arras, a city in northern France not far from Vimy Ridge, the site of bloody battles in WWI. Students also saw the Carrière Wellington, a huge series of underground quarries that sheltered as many as 25,000 Allies soldiers in the Great War. Their visit was written up in an article in La Voix du Nord.

Addendum: The D is reporting that "The Off-Campus Student Advisory Board, a committee designed to improve study abroad programs, plans to improve student knowledge about off-campus programs by launching a website next week detailing academic, cultural and internship opportunities, as well as basic safety and accommodation information for each off-campus program." This is a smart improvement: I'd have enjoyed seeing other students' accumulated knowledge when I was on LSA in Mainz.

Addendum: Similar to the above-mentioned website, the Student Assembly's new Dartmouth Group Directory, a Wikipedia-style database with information about student groups, is a nice bit of progress on an otherwise moribund campus.