DANZIGER WINS A SECOND TERM

But older alumni supported Washburn.

When the votes were counted on May 17, Robert Danziger '56, TU'57 defeated challenger Wilcomb Washburn '48 and won a second term on the Board of Trustees. In the wake of the fierce campaign, some on campus are wondering if voters used other criteria besides a candidate's vita and experience to decide how to mark their ballots. Was the election, as The Dartmouth termed it, "a battle between the 'old' and the 'new'?" Was Washburn defeated because he was associated with The Dartmouth Review? Was the election more than a contest between two men by becoming, as Danziger claimed, a referendum oh the policies of the president and the Board? Without polls, the answers to these questions are purely speculative; however, the election process and the vote tally itself provide some insights.

• Danziger won 13,504 votes. Washburn garnered 9,511.

• The election was costly. The College reportedly spent about $45,000 for mailings, and the campaign cost each candidate some $100,000. In other words, about $10.65 was spent on each voter who returned a ballot.

• All of the classes that graduated before 1953 voted for Washburn. Danziger carried all of the classes from 1953 forward, along with professionalschool and advanced-degree alumni. Danziger's margin of victory was greatcessor est among the youngest classes.

• Older alumni classes had a much higher participation than those who graduated in the last 20 years. Alumni from the professional schools and those awarded advanced degrees had the lowest voting percentages. (Only 16 percent of the advanced-degree recipients cast their ballots.) In total, roughly half of Dartmouth's 46,787 alumni voted.

The recent spate of Alumni Council Trustee nominees being challenged by petition candidates has the Council and the Trustees themselves looking at alternatives that may be less divisive and expensive. A new system, however, won't be in place by November when the Alumni Council nominates a suc- to John Steel '54, who will retire next June. Steel, a challenger, won a seat on the Board in the 1980 election and is now serving a second term.

At their June meeting, the Trustees elected Andrew Sigler '53, T'56 and Kate Stith '73 to five-year terms as charter trustees. Sigler, of New Canaan, Connecticut, is the CEO of Champion International Corporation. Stith, a resident of New Haven, is a Yale law professor. The two vacancies were created when Richard Bressler '52, TU '53 stepped off the board after a single five-year term and Priscilla Frechette Maynard completed the maximum two terms. George Munroe '43 was elected for a second year as Board chair.

The frequency of Trustee elections and the number of votes garnered by the challenger has the Alumni Council rethinking its nominating process.