Moving Foward

THOSE WORKING TO REVISE THE Association of Alumni constitution look forward to putting a working proposal before all alumni later this year.

The evolving product of a task force chaired by Joe Stevenson '57, the new document currently has some elementssuch as all-media voting—in common with the draft that was narrowly defeated in December 2003 (see "A No Vote," Mar/Apr 2004), but, says Stevenson, "There are profound differences." The existing draft reflects a Herculean effort to bring divergent points ofview together and to further efforts to make alumni organization and governance more transparent and inclusive. There are provisions, for example, for nomination by petition to a new Alumni Assembly, which would replace the existing Alumni Council, and for direct alumni voting on association officers.

There appears to be consensus among task force members, who do not agree on every point in the document, that out- reach orchestrated by Stevenson is at the heart of this new proposal.

"We used the previous draft as a starting point with reconciliation a priority," says Stevenson. Opponents of that draft, most notably members of Dartmouth Alumni for Open Governance (DAOG), claimed that it ceded control of the association to the council and that the council was in thrall to the administration.

"Last time the ball carrier got tackled on the 1-yard line," says association president John Walters '62 of the 2003 proposal. "It was our job to see howwe could get it into the end zone."

"The process has been different this time," says DAOG and task force member Bill Hutchinson '76. "There was a stronger effort to bring in dissidents' views, to include their concerns." Another difference, he says, is that input is now being sought "while the document is still a working proposal rather than a draft constitution." Hutchinson is not predicting that a draft can be voted on at the council's spring meeting. "We're not wedded to a timetable," he says. "It's more important to get it right and have it stand for a long time."

To do so, the task force retained the primary recommendations of the defeated resolution: more at-large representatives and rejoining association and council under one structure. Under the new draft, the overarching representative body would be the association (of which every alum is a member), with an assembly expanded from 94 to 122 members and an alumni liaison board to convey alumni concerns to the College trustees.

"We wanted to create an avenue of ccess for rational, constructive input," says council president Karen McKeel Calby '81. "Increasingly not only the administration but also the trustees realize the importance of the alumni constituency. This will be an important step in improving the relationship between Dartmouth and her alumni."