“A Change Agent”

T.J. Rodgers '70 brings to the Colleges board of trustees a passion for academic excellence—and a commitment to free speech on campus.

CONTROVERSY HAS SWIRLED around Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers '70 from the moment he announced his intention to run for the College's board of trustees as a petition candidate. He garnered votes from more than 8,000 of the 14,661 alumni who cast ballots to win election to the board in May. Since then he has met informally with several trustees but had yet to attend trustee orientation or his first meeting when he spoke with DAM by phone from his San Jose, California, office June 17.

What is your assessment of the kind ofeducation offered at Dartmouth today?

I believe Dartmouth still offers the small classes taught by exceptional teachers that I consider essential to a superb liberal arts education, but there are eroding factors at work. Among them is the proliferation of courses taught by guest lecturers filling in for professors on leave. It's my under- standing from some faculty members that these courses have jumped to between 30 and 40 percent of the courses taught. I'm attempting to verify that data now. If true, it's not good. The other thing I have heard from faculty members is that there are waiting lists for many classes, something I never encountered even once in four years. Frankly, if I were a parent paying $40,000 for my son's or daughter's education, I wouldn't stand for it.

What can you tell us about your spur-of-the-moment visit to campus in June?

When I realized I had an opportunity to visit Hanover, I contacted a department chair, who had written me a congratulatory letter. He set up a meeting for me with about 15 faculty members. I also asked friends in Hanover to invite a group of fraternity members to meet with me so I could get an idea of how to help them.

How much of an impact can one trusteehave?

It's difficult to speculate. I see reactions to my election that range from very friendly letters to the defensive. When I wanted to know the results of my own election, which I expected to be published, I had to penetrate several layers of secrecy and was told, "We don't report election results." Several alumni groups then called for the results to be made public and at the last minute they were published quietly on a Web site. With regard to key issues, I will focus on only two: free speech on campus and the quality of undergraduate education. I view my role as a change agent, representing the alumni that elected me.

How did you feel upon reading a comment from one trustee after your election that suggested once you got toHanover you'd see things differentlythan you do now?

That was very benign compared to what I heard during a dinner meeting I attended with four trustees shortly after my election. Virtually everything I raised as an issue—starting with the secrecy surrounding the trustee election resultswas discounted. I was told that I'd understand better after being on the board for a year. When I said to them that my election as an outside candidate and the failure to elect an endorsed candidate reflects that alumni are looking for a change, for someone to represent them, the [sitting trustees] said I was overstating any potential problems and that there was no mandate contained in my election. I said that I thought 14,000 votes meant something; they said not. We went on like that for over two hours. It was a very discouraging meeting. I call their attitude the amoeba theory, which postulates I will be engulfed and absorbed by the board. They're going to find out that I am an indigestible character.

Will you name the four trustees?

I'm between a rock and a hard place. I risk burning bridges. Or, if I don't say their names, I support Dartmouth's penchant for secrecy—the same one that answers any request for information with, "Why do you need it?" And stamps virtually every document I finally get as "confidential." Did you know that the report summarizing how many alumni give money to the College is marked "confidential?" So, for now, I will not disclose names.

Did The Wall Street Journal's coverageof your campaign affect the vote?

For the record, I was completely unaware of the Journal article. I was on a two-and- a-half week trip out of the country when it was published. I was never interviewed; they just took quotes from my answers to the trustee questionnaire on the Web page. The story was nice, but it isn't what got me elected.

What do you say to alumni concernedabout faculty members' research having a negative impact on their teaching?

The real question for me is not research versus teaching, but where to put the dividing line. When I was at Stanford getting my masters and Ph.D., I saw research dominating undergraduate teaching in a way I do not want to see at Dartmouth. Ideally, we want to have professors doing research who also love teaching undergraduates. The professors I met with believe that research is important. But it cannot be allowed to undermine the undergraduate program.

Do you know from personal experiencethat a researcher can indeed be an excellent teacher?

My mother just gave me a box of letters I wrote when I was in college and in one of them I was gushing about professor Walter Stockmayer, who taught me sophomore chemistry. He was a respected researcher, but also the kind of professor we need—someone who wrote the textbook and enjoyed teaching it to small classes. That's the balance we've got to strike. I'm looking for the warning signs: teachers who don't teach much, the use of guest lecturers and—God forbid—the use of graduate students to teach.

You've spoken out about the need forstudents to be grounded in the classics,able to write well and also prepared fora technological age. How can that beaccomplished?

The short answer is I don't know. There is a group of Dartmouth alumni who are ardent advocates of a strong core curriculum, along the lines of the ones proposed by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. On the other hand, a new study from Harvard recommends a reduction in the core curriculum. Harvard has made a thoughtful decision that should not be ignored, but this is Dartmouth, and we should continue to be better at undergraduate education than Harvard, not copy them. My experience in hiring many new college graduates is that they do not think and write as well as they could and that there is a big science and math hole in their education. My plan is to examine Dartmouth's core curriculum and—in particular—its quality of instruction before I take a position.

What are your thoughts on the state ofDartmouth athletics?

When I was there, Dartmouth won the Ivy League football championship two out of four years without sacrificing academics. The freshman class had a lower grade point average than the sophomores, the sophomores were lower than juniors and so on. The varsity football team's grade point average was higher than that of the seniors. Student-athletes won the Ivy League championship. I don't see scholarship and athletics as incompatible. I do see the underfunding of athletics as a problem. The administration tried to shut down the swim team for budgetary rea- sons—after a period of dramatically increasing administrative expenses. Their priorities are wrong, in my opinion.

You mentioned meeting with fraternitymembers. What are your concernsabout them?

My meeting with them made it clear that they are afraid of retribution and have been made to believe that they are bad people. The Colleges propaganda says that fraternity members are better citizens than before, due to the Colleges disciplinary interventions. But talk to fraternity members and you get a much uglier picture. Due to an obscure New Hampshire law, if the College doesn't officially recognize a fraternity, it can't just use its private property as a boarding house and social club; it is forced out of business. So there is an endless cycle of making gestures to please the administration.The Student Life Initiative is a mechanism used by the administration to control fraternities and has resulted in a huge and expensive bureaucracy that siphons money away from teaching. Its life turned upside down. We have deans determining whether or not someone can take a beer out on his porch.

It sounds as if your meeting disturbedyou.

It was painful to see these good fraternity kids buying into negative stereotypes perpetuated by the College. The saddest moment came when they were describing what was "wrong" with them, talking about date rape drugs and a hostile environment for women. When I asked them if they'd ever seen or used such drugs or been aware of any such use they said "no" but "you hear about it." Then one student said, "You wouldn't want your sister to come here," but two other students chimed in and said their sisters did go to Dartmouth and had never had a problem. Even then, these students recited the litany of the sins of fraternity life. I had to say to them, "You guys are fine, young men. Please stop apologizing."

Why are you so concerned about freespeech on campus?

In response to my letter complaining about free speech on campus a few years ago, President Wright sent me a letter stating that Dartmouth had no speech code. I disagree. So does the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a Philadelphia-based organization focused on protecting free speech and other individual rights on Americas campuses. On www.speechcodes.org, FIRE rates Dartmouth "red"—signifying that the College has "at least one policy that both clearly and substantially restricts the freedom of speech" on campus. At the same time, it rates Yale "yellow"— for having at least one ambiguous policy—and Penn "green," to indicate that speech "is at least nominally protected." After a thorough study of Dartmouth's regulations on free speech, FIRE has concluded that the conduct rules enforced by Dartmouth's Office of Residential Life repress free speech.

What lessons learned in business willyou bring to academia?

A company's right to survive is determined by its competence. If we aren't competitive with the best in the world, we'll be out of business—or, at best, alsorans. The same goes for education. is