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October 2007
www.alum.dartmouth.org/classes/54/
PGBarker54@aol.com (203) 661-7611
IT IS, SIR, A SMALL COLLEGE, YET . . . . . .
The turbulence surrounding Dartmouth College over the past six months has served to underline the "yet" in Daniel Webster"s pleadings, but in unfortunate negative ways. Some commentary and clarification appears warranted. In order, the following has occurred:
-a spirited election of a new Alumni Trustee with dollops of cacophony and mysterious financings
-an election of the Executive Committee of the Association of Alumni with, for the first time, petition-nominated candidates
-a study and analysis by the Board of Trustees' existing Governance Committee of the means by which candidates for the Board are nominated
-a period of supposition as to the outcome of the Governance Committee's findings and recommendations
-the release of the Committee's findings/recommendations and the actions taken by the Board, including expansion of the Board's size and improvements to the nominating process
-the announcement by a majority of the Executive Committee of the Association of Alumni of a lawsuit being brought against the Board of Trustees to stop the implementation of the governance changes adopted at their September 8th meeting
To prepare for this commentary, I arranged the myriad communications I have received relative to the situation(s) in date order and found some 73 such in the Ô54 pile under my computer.
Many were from Classmates - on both sides of the issues - some were from others supporting pro and con sides of the issues, some were articles from newspapers ranging from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times to the Valley News and the Union Leader. A momentous pile of stuff from an alumni body of which less than a third takes the time and effort to vote on college issues. Assuming that we Ô54s fit the general mold of the 68,000-member alumni body, allow me to repeat the answers to some questions posed by Dr. JERRY BARTON at the last monthly Ô54 luncheon in New York City. Jerry was a newcomer to the regular group of 8 -12 and brought a refreshing point of view.
He asked: "What is the Association of Alumni?"
Answer: the "AoA" includes any and all persons who ever matriculated at Dartmouth College and all of its graduate schools and Masters" programs. Historically, its only function has been to conduct the election of Alumni nominees for presentation to the Board of Trustees for election to the Board. The Executive Committee of the AoA had generally been alumni who lived in the Hanover area. Until 1990, their function was merely an acknowledgment of the single candidate proposed by the Alumni Council's Alumni Trustee Nominating Committee - it was DICK PAGE in 1989. Beginning in 1990, with a mandated 3-person slate, the AoA's function became more important in that the alumni body was asked to select a single candidate from the trio to be presented to the Board.
This process became more complex with the emergence of candidates nominated by petition, e.g., Dr. JOHN STEEL and Wid Washburn (in 1988), then the more recent four, Mssrs. Rodgers, Robinson, Zywicki and Smith. The nine-member Executive Committee of the AoA includes six petition-nominated members and three who were nominated by the AoA. The President of the AoA, William Hutchinson Ô76, is in the minority of the Exec Committee. The majority has issued several bulletins, criticizing the Board's actions and is the group bringing the law suit. There is some question as to whether the AoA is exceeding its authorities.
Jerry then asked: "What is the Alumni Council?"
Answer: the Alumni Council is an organization of some 100 members composed of Class representatives (ours is JOHN SPRINGER "53) and representatives of clubs, functions, e.g., class secretaries, class presidents, plus a certain number of at-large members. Each member is assigned to at least two committees - alumni fund, student activities, nominations, athletics, etc. The Class of 1954 has been well represented over the years including STEVE MULLINS as President and Mssrs MANDELBAUM, BOB LEVINE and PETE BARKER serving as Nominating Chairs. Another 20 served three-year terms. The Council, in addition to the important job of putting forth well-vetted potential nominees for the Board of Trustees, also serves as a conduit for alumni opinion and concerns to the Board.
Now - a few observations. The term "Democracy" has been flaunted as being under attack and a reason to oppose the actions of the Board. Dartmouth College is a private educational institution, not "the Republic of Dartmouth" as one wit opined. It is not governed by its constituents, but by an elected board of trustees. Secondly, the oft-quoted "agreement of 1891", granting the alumni five seats on the Board, was a Board resolution, not a legally-binding agreement. It was an apparent accommodation to the alumni because of some problems at the time and there was no mention of "parity". Moving into the realm of fantasy, the resolution stipulated that the five alumni members would be of the clergy. Why don"t we underwrite petition candidacies for the Reverends COFFIN, MAYBERRY, COLBY, RANSOM and Father FITZ and let them straighten things out in Hanover?
A few quotes:
RON DUNTON: "Excitement's a lot better than boredom any day, right?"
JOHN STEEL: "The Dartmouth issues will play out in time."
President Jim Wright: "The College has been informed by its attorneys that the Board has full authority to enlarge the Board as it did and to make the other governance changes it authorized and that there is no merit to the legal claims asserted by the Executive Committee members who voted to bring the suit. The College is well-prepared to respond to this legal action."
The venerable Ort Hicks Ô21, on the question of who owns the College: "No one owns Dartmouth College. Dartmouth College is a compact with society."
And lastly, a surprisingly candid piece from Professor of English Emeritus Jeff Hart, long a supporter of the Dartmouth Review:
Reform Was Needed
This knot is difficult to untie, especially if you don't arrive with preconceptions. As always, one must depend on fact and analysis.
During Jim Wright's tenure as president of Dartmouth, we have seen four petition candidates defeat the official nominees. A main reason for this must be a widespread impression among alumni voters outside of Hanover, indeed, hundreds and thousands of miles away, that President Wright has not been doing a good job. I'm close to daily events here and that impression is far from the truth. In fact, after the demagogic and divisive tactics of James Freedman, President Wright has brought an era of good feeling and considerable positive achievement. But the petition candidates have sometimes issued complaints about today's Dartmouth that are contradicted by the facts. Many of the alumni voters must be unaware of that.
There do remain important things to do and that task will interesting, creative and unifying. None of the last four petition candidates mentioned these, and I will return to them in a moment.
"Saving Dartmouth!". So demanded a recent full-page ad in The New York Times. Emergency! The College is about to go over the falls! What nonsense. Such an apocalyptic ad was immensely expensive, no doubt six figures. Indeed, a bit puzzling.
The recent changes in governance had two parts: 1) the petition method of electing alumni trustees; and 2)the size of the Board of Trustees. I will address the petition process first.
Clearly, the petition process was seriously flawed:
1. The candidate, in effect, was self-nominated, it requiring only 500 signatures to gain a place on the ballot, a microscopic basis for nomination relative to the size of the alumni body. Voters know nothing about the petition candidate except what the candidate chooses to tell us. (After I voted for one candidate, I found out more, and regretted my vote.) Though the petition process has been described as "democratic", this road to nomination does not resemble democracy. Where else can you get on a ballot with a handful of signatures?
2. The candidates provided a "platform" as the basis for the candidacy consisting of things that need change or are cause for future concern. The criticism by petition candidates about present conditions at Dartmouth has included class size, availability of professors, excessive number of administrators, student-professor ratios, the threat to free speech. Statistics are available that demonstrate these concerns have no basis in fact. And I can attest that freedom of speech is no longer under attack. Though those complaints have little basis in fact, alumni voters have no way of knowing that. In normal democratic elections, such claims would have been challenged in public debate. The fact that incorrect allegations just sit there unchallenged during a petition election is a serious flaw. In no other "democratic" process would that be true.
IMPORTANT: In future trustee elections, incorrect statements about conditions at Dartmouth should be corrected by e-mail to all alumni.
3. Great concern has been expressed by petition candidates that Dartmouth might become a "research university" to the detriment of undergraduate education:
a. Undergraduate professors conduct a great deal of research and publication. Rather than harming their teaching, it enhances it. Publication is important and reputation enhances authority. For example, when I was an undergraduate at Columbia, what Lionel Trilling said in the classroom was more important because he had written The Liberal Imagination. Its assumptions provided context and so, even when he was wrong in class, his mistakes mattered.
b. Dartmouth already has first-class graduate programs in business and medicine, and with the new Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, the medical school should be competitive with the very best. Thayer engineering school, I understand, is not in that category. And Dartmouth offers good graduate work in the hard sciences. Thus, Dartmouth, in many respects, is already a respectable small university in some fields. But this is not true in the liberal arts.
4. And here is the task for the immediate future on which all alumni can agree. For Dartmouth to offer graduate degrees in literature, for example, competitive with Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia, a large financial investment in faculty recruitment would be required. In a practical sense, what a Ph.D. candidate wants is a professor with the authority to pick up the phone and get the candidate a serious job interview. That authority comes from publication. Such a professor will also provide excellent intellectual guidance. Dartmouth has been completing major expensive construction projects. The next step should be the construction of a liberal arts faculty of national and even international distinction. For an endowed chair in, for example, Shakespeare to be named after a donor should be as attractive as a building. This would not at all imperil undergraduate education, In fact, it would enhance it. There's nothing wrong with that other small university, Princeton
5. Conclusion:
a. The reform of the petition procedure by nominating no more than two official candidates and requiring the winner to have an absolute majority was a good start. Voters should be informed by e-mail when false allegations are being made.
b. The number of trustees on the Board has been increased from 18 to 26, while retaining the number available to petition candidates at 8. Since two trustees are ex officio, eight constituted half of the 18 member Board. The wisdom of the change can be debated in good faith. Given the incorrect claims made by recent petition candidates, it can be justified. It is also disturbing that this issue has attracted the attention of a politically partisan press. The internal workings of such an institution as Dartmouth should not have a national political coloration. But there always seems to be a "but" in this matter, the agenda of the Board of Trustees seems to be frozen before the meeting even begins. The only useful item in the extensive treatment of all this in The Wall Street Journal was the Joe Rago (congratulations!) interview with trustee T.J. Rodgers, who maintained that the Board meetings are "scripted." That is, new items cannot be placed on the agenda by trustees. If that is true, it"s fair to ask, "What the hell is going on here?" I can't adjudicate that question.
The relevance of the 1891 protocol mandating that 50% of the Board be elected by the alumni vote (Ed. note - wrong!) very likely will be settled in court. Indeed, I understand that preparations are being made for the legal challenge. We can certainly live with the result while going ahead to major recruitment for the liberal arts faculty.
OK - enough. Now let's talk about Ô54s. I will be very disappointed if I don't receive some scathing mail on the above.
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Speaking of endowments, DICK and JANE PEARL have endowed a chair in the Environmental Studies department. The first beneficiary of the endowment will be Professor Andrew Friedland, Chair of the department. Dick is working on the "can"t take it with you principle and he isn't 75 yet!
DAVE METZ confirmed the good words said about his Ô51-"52 roommate, COBE ADDISON. Also: "My company still chugs along.(media marketing). Real family business with two sons and BETSEY helping big-time. Looking forward to 50th at Tuck."
DOTTIE FITCH and Harold Blood attended Harold's 65th at the University of Maine and "Harold's peppier than all of his classmates!" Must be the association with Ô54s. They winter /spring in Punta Gorda, FL and hang out in Greenfield, MA the rest of the time.
A note from NANCY SHERMAN, acknowledging a gift to Dartmouth in BILL's name has a picture of an eagle soaring over a mountain on which the snows have fallen in the image of stars and stripes. On the reverse side is a poem, "Timeless" by their granddaughter, Samantha. An incredible tribute to a fallen "eagle".
The Kazmeier Thing
I was roundly castigated by JOE MESICS for saying that the "story" was over. Joe feels that: "Unlike the mini-reunions and the endless cruises to the Greek Isles, the K story has managed to unite and bond our Class like nothing previously." Immediately following, I got a note from PARKER CASWELL which is worth quoting: "As a participant, Defensive Right Tackle, I had no chance to tackle Kaz. The Princeton offense was single-wing right 90% of the time, which played to Kaz's strengths, sweep right, off-tackle right and various running passes and fakes all to the right. I, being to his left, had my hands full defending Pivorotto's traps and reverses heading my way, so i had little contact with him. On the other side was Dick Myers, Defensive Left End, whose job was to contain and control Kaz, e.g., 'don't let him get through a play without hitting him'." Cas goes on to tell about rooming with Myers on the road and at a game at West Point, a heeler named JON MOORE was assigned to make sure they were up and at it on time. After the Dartmouth-Princeton game was over, Cas said "Good game, coach" to Charlie Caldwell, who retorted with epithets including the terms "hooligans, thugs, etc." To cap it of, Cas was named on Caldwell"s All-Opponent Team for that year and the two following.
To keep this strange situation rolling, I sent a letter to Kazmeier, "Hands Across the Ivy", but have not had a response. The various takes on the infamous play have taken on a "Rashomon" aspect where each reporter has his own recollection of what really happened. By the way, Princeton won the game 13 - 0.
In the (now) 176 page Dartmouth Football book, they have managed to conjure every conceivable football play in tables, allowing ranking by "most ....". We continue to be well-represented by DAVE McLAUGHLIN, RUDY THEILSCHER, JIM MILLER and DICK JENNISON.
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On July 28, KATIE and JON MOORE were tricked into attending a surprise 50th wedding anniversary party in Sudbury, MA ( they were married on June 15, 1957). With the exception of DEAN BERRY (deceased), all the Ô54 members of their wedding party were present. Also their four children and four grandchildren. PETE GEITHNER supplied the photograph below.
Chuck Ennis, Peter Geithner, Jonathan Moore, Jack Christy, Katie Moore, Charlie Morrison, Peter Bullis, Skip Weymouth
WES and NOEL DINGMAN had the fates with them on April 6th when their Greek cruise ship, the "Sea Diamond" struck rocks and sank in the Aegean Sea. 1500 passengers, with only two lost in the accident. No explanation - it was a sunny day at 4 PM in calm seas and the shallow rocks clearly visible. Hard to imagine being part of such a large catastrophe. Glad you"re still with us!
PETE KENYON forwarded an enthusiastic report from Emmanuel Mensah, our DONALD R. DESCOMBES '54 Tucker Fellow. His chosen project was "Education and Youth Empowerment in Ghana". Rather then step on his descriptive remarks, here is the abbreviated version:
"In the beginning of my summer, I taught at Creator School in Ghana. I used my free afternoons to simultaneously work at a hospital (where I learnt a lot about healthcare in Ghana for my future professional goals). I quit my hospital work after a month and a half in order to focus on planning and organizing leadership seminars for middle school, high school and university students under my organization, Ghana Youth Leadership Alliance (GYLA). It was a two week program and it was very successful. I used a curriculum from the Leadershape Institute of the University of Illinois (from which I graduated in the beginning of the summer) and another leadership program I facilitated when I was at the United World College in Canada. The system in Ghana doesn't allow students to explore their potentials and it was amazing to see how much potential and how powerful the visions of the participants were (our goal now is providing or directing them to resources to bring their visions into reality). I'm now coordinating a mentor/mentee system with the participants and young professionals in my organization who are abroad and I"m also hoping to keep the program going every year.
"My good friend from my two years at the United World College also came to Ghana to help me with my project (she's originally from Switzerland and currently attends St. Andrews in Scotland - she also obtained a travel grant from her university to learn how GYLA is empowering the youth in Ghana and hopefully will apply the same procedures in Sri Lank, here she"s originally from). She took over the teaching of French for a while and also helped with the leadership seminars.
"The last few weeks were very busy, considering I traveled all the way to the north of the country by bus (it's 14 hours away and I divided my journey in half and stayed only one night). I had a prearranged meeting with the Rotary Club of Tamale to arrange means by which my organization could contribute to the Guinea Worm eradication project up north (the Rotary Club of Lebanon is also part of that project). It was very successful, and through an organized body of volunteers at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, who are members of my organization and Rotaract, we will be completing a dam project in January (I'm currently working on the logistics of how this will take place). The problem in Africa is implementation and it's encouraging to have this group of young engineers (civil, mechanical, electrical ....) and biological science students and all fields, ready to eradicate the Guinea Worm.
It's been a successful and busy summer and I thank you for your support. I look forward to keeping in touch with the Class of 1954."
Changes - find your Class Directory and note the following:
-Ben & Sarah Gilson
Kendal at Hanover
80 Lyme Road
Hanover, NH 03755
benjamingilson@mac.com
-Don Kennedy 2xscull@cox.net
-Alan A. Staley
1853 Fendall Ave.
Charlottesville, VA 22903-1642
-Dick Deaner bevdeaner@bak.rr.com
-Ernie & Kathy Dahl
211 Perazul Circle
Sacramento, CA 95835
-Pete Bullis
111 Caldwell Farm Rd.
Byfield, MA 01922
978-462-6210
mpbullis@comcast.net
-Wes Dingman
cwdingman@frontiernet.net
-Dick & Marge Trowbridge
trowsnet@verizon.net
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PETE BULLIS manages a little time, now and then, in his chosen field of architecture - mainly residential. "Some music with the New Black Eagle Band including a gig at Brookline's Longwood Cricket Club to celebrate Dick Mount's ('55) 25,000 tennis set against Roy Emerson (?). Six of the seven Dartmouth Indian Chiefs spent three days together in early September, including a videotaping of remembrances. We are trying to chase down memorabilia. Any Ô54 with such stuff should contact Pete.
You never know when or where you're going to see BOB RAFELSON's name. The latest was a Newsweek interview with Sally Field relative to the Emmys. Asked whether she'd ever had a part she desperately wanted, but didn't get, she answered: "The part that sort of changed things for me was in this tiny movie that Bob Rafelson directed called "Stay Hungry." When I went to read for it, I heard Rafelson yelling from the back room, "How dare you let her in here! I have better things to do than see Sally Field!" But by then, I knew how use the fury, the rejection. The "I"m not good enough, I"m not sexy enough." Certainly "I"m not sexy enough" was a big one." Not quite sure what that meant, but apparently it had to do with her "Flying Nun" image.
JIM ADAMS" "annual fish story" reported a change of venue for the Ô54 Fly Fishing Team from the rough, tough banks of the Blackwater River to the comfort of the Megantic Club on the Maine/Canada border. While the turnout was higher, "it was unclear whether WIL WILKINS, SKIP GRINTON and BILL MURANE felt uncomfortable surrounded by the greater creature comforts of Megantic and yearned for the bugs and hard sleeping surfaces of the Blackwater ..... or had other reasons." The fishergroup also included JIM, DICK LEWIS, DICK PAGE, BOB LEVINE, PETE ANKENY and TOM KELSEY. JACK PIERCE joined them and demonstrated the skills developed in streams worldwide by landing the largest brook trout. Bob Levine hosted a blind wine tasting and, expectedly, the majority picked the $9.95 wine over the $50 bottle. The way home was pleasantly interrupted by a visit to Cape Elizabeth and a lobsterfest hosted by Dick and AUDREY LEWIS. Two lobsters apiece and hand-picked potatoes were all local and fairly legal. Jim posited that it was special for him in that "lobsters are very hard to locate in the high Sonoran Desert of Arizona." Truly a fine re-connecting.
The Amos Tuck School has been getting very high marks. #1 in Forbes, based on "return on investment for its graduates." #1 in The Wall Street Journal, based on the rankings of recruiters. And #4 in the Economist Intelligence Unit's ranking of the world's 100 top full-time MBA programs. Guess Professor Hart's appraisal was correct.
Newsletter Delivery
Beginning with the next newsletter, we will join most of the younger Dartmouth classes in delivering the newsletter via cyberspace - the Class website. There are some real dollars to be saved in production and postage by going this route. As soon as I have finished an issue, it is sent overnight to our
Webmaster PERRY DAVIS and he puts it up within hours of receipt. In order to make this innovation work, I will have to develop an email mechanism to notify you when the issue has been posted. Your cooperation and patience will be appreciated. Those Luddite Classmates who shun computers will receive hard-copy directly from me.
Here's a small example of relativity as we move through our eighth decade. At our 50th reunion, we were proud and pleased to present President Wright with a check for $7.8 million. On October 8th, following a record-setting gift of $14.4 at their 25th, the Class of 1978 announced a planned gift for their 30th of $43 million! $40 million to name the Life Sciences Building and $3 million for unrestricted gifts. The age of hedge fund managers is upon us. The Life Sciences Building is a top priority of the College's current fund-raising initiative, the Campaign for the Dartmouth Experience with a targeted total of $1.3 billion. Today, the total raised is $919 million, 71 percent of the goal, realized at the 70 percent point on the campaign timeline.
IN MEMORIAM
PETER JAY GUTLON
Pete left us on July 31, succumbing to a lengthy struggle with pulmonary thrombosis, a particularly insidious condition that restricts the breathing function. Not being one to give in easily, Pete prevailed longer than most similarly afflicted and was known to drive a golf ball long and straight while a friend held his oxygen canister. It was a reflection of the enthusiasm and charm with which he led his life.
A native of Newton Center, MA, Pete was the top of everything he did at Tabor Academy - class president, football, basketball, baseball, glee club and the student council. An economics major at Dartmouth, he exhibited his leadership skills early and was elected president of the Zeta Psi fraternity and a member of the Interfraternity Council. From among the military training programs, he opted for the Army ROTC program and enjoyed the camaraderie of the smaller group, maintaining the friendships formed through his adulthood. Dick Page, Dean Hildebrandt and Bob Adnopoz each roomed with Pete during his early years on campus.
After graduation, he married Audrey Chase and they immediately hied themselves to Germany where Pete served his two years" commitment with the Army Ordnance Corps. After mustering out, he , Audrey and their two children settled briefly in Providence, RI where he engaged in the toy business with broad national distribution. In 1956, they packed up and transferred to the British Colony of Hong Kong where Pete established his own firm, representing several well-known clothing brands. With his reputation in hand, he returned to New York City in 1980 and became a vice president for both Van Heusen and Calvin Klein. At a point during the 80s, the love of his home state beckoned and he moved to Lenox, MA and became a real estate broker.
Finding that the life of a realtor offers time to do other things, Pete signed on at the Canyon Ranch as Director of Membership. From that point on, he took great delight in describing the luxurious lifestyle at the Canyon Ranch to his classmates. Then he met Sue Lowey and their mutual attraction led to their marriage in 1996. Their combined families of four children and two grandchildren brought them great joy as they enjoyed life in Highland Beach, FL and Lenox. They made Florida their permanent home after Pete's retirement from Canyon Ranch in 1993 and began regular trips to Israel and, in Pete's words, they "became even more aware of how precious life is."
Pete"s natural, genuine flamboyance made him a memorable friend.
A memorial book will be placed in Baker Library in Peter Gutlon's name.
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Courtesy: R. Barker
The 2007 Only Child
Society of Cape Cod Cocktail Party
Dick Barker, Dick Page. Jim Berry