Alumni Council

Among the elements that differentiate Dartmouth from its peers—its wooded location, the rugged spirit of its students, the liberal arts education that pulsates beneath the surface of the Green like an academic heartbeat—is its fiercely loyal and closely engaged alumni body.

There are nearly 80,000 of us, when you take into account those who roam the girdled earth with a Dartmouth bachelor’s degree (including the class of 2017, whom I wish to welcome here), as well as others who have left Hanover clutching medical, engineering, business and other graduate degrees.

We’re such a large group that if we were to fill every seat in Yankee Stadium—a hard prospect for this Red Sox fan to contemplate— tens of thousands would be left cooling their heels outside.

That is one reason that Ernest Martin Hopkins created the Dartmouth Alumni Council in 1913: to provide the College’s sprawling alumni network, its population now larger than the cities of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Kalamazoo, Michigan, with a representative body. (Three years later Hopkins would become president of Dartmouth.)

Hopkins intended the council as a forum to give voice to alumni sentiment, at a volume loud enough for the administration in particular to hear, as well as to function as the eyes and ears of those graduates who may no longer crisscross the Hanover Plain but still care deeply about Dartmouth and its students.

This fall, for the first time in five years, the Alumni Council will also fulfill its mission of working with the alumni body to fill a vacancyin this instance two vacancies—on the board of trustees. More about that in a moment.

The 125 members of this year’s Alumni Council include one delegate elected by each undergraduate class from the class of 2017 back to the class of 1962, as well as three councilors

whose collective constituency encompasses every class that has celebrated its 55th reunion. There are also councilors who represent regional clubs, affinity groups and the graduate schools and several who serve at-large.

The council convenes in Hanover twice a year to meet with President Hanlon, representatives of his leadership team and members of the board of trustees, as well as with students and professors. Among our responsibilities is to pepper them with questions (yours, as well as ours) and to then share with our constituents what we have heard and seen.

In some years—and this is one of them, as are 2018 and 2019—the council is tasked with placing before the alumni body nominees for vacancies among the eight trustee positions that the alumni body selects. The board itself chooses an additional 16 charter trustees, and two more are ex-officio—the president of the College and governor of New Hampshire—for a total of 26.

I am grateful to the Alumni Council Nominating Committee, led this year by Alyse Streicher ’95 and last year by John Banks ’90, for helping us as a council sift through the names of hundreds of alumni who have distinguished themselves in countless ways. As I write this column our deliberations are ongoing. You can learn more about the process at dartgo.org/aoa.

If you want to suggest alumni whom we might consider for future trustee vacancies, I invite you to do so at dartgo.org/aoa. Please also let your councilor or me know about any issues you would like to bring to the council’s attention or drop us a line just to tell us a story about the role Dartmouth has played in your life. You can reach me at alumni.council.president@ dartmouth.edu.

And if you’re interested in getting involved with the council, I would encourage you to contact your class officers or those who lead your local Dartmouth club ora group with which you are affiliated. You can find more information at dartgo.org/council.

—Jacques “Jack” Steinberg ’88, president, 6068 Blunt Alumni Center, Hanover, NH 03755; alumni.council.president@dartmouth.edu