GREEN MENACE:

Dartmouth Alumni Elect Two Dissidents to Board of Trustees (John P. Gregg, 5/13/05, Valley News)

Two Dartmouth College alumni who ran petition campaigns supporting undergraduate education and freedom of speech on campus have won seats on the college's board of trustees, Dartmouth said yesterday.

Peter Robinson, a 1979 graduate and former White House speechwriter for President Reagan, was backed by 48 percent of the alumni who voted. Todd Zywicki, a 1988 Dartmouth graduate and law professor at George Mason University, won more than 44 percent support. Dartmouth said 15,334 alumni -- about 24 percent of Dartmouth's alumni body -- voted.

Robinson and Zywicki -- who follow in the footsteps of trustee TJ Rodgers' petition campaign last year -- defeated four other candidates endorsed by Dartmouth's Alumni Council.

“The message is clearly not one of endorsement of the current administration or the current leadership of the alumni,” said Windsor resident John MacGovern, a 1980 graduate who has opposed the powers of the Alumni Council, which some graduates think is too close to Dartmouth President Jim Wright. “It's a huge upset win.”

The petition campaigns also came in the wake of revelations in December of a much-debated letter Dartmouth Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg wrote in 2000 criticizing the “culture” around collegiate football.

Robinson yesterday said he received a congratulatory call from Wright and said his election was part of a “clean, honest disagreement” about Dartmouth's priorities and vision. [...]

Robinson said the Internet, e-mail and Web logs played a key role in his ability to communicate with other alumni about Dartmouth.

“I learned far more about what is actually taking place in Hanover, New Hampshire, from blogs, for the most part run by undergraduates and recent graduates … than I did in the last 25 years reading the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine,” said Robinson, a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

The dissident forces have really busted their humps to win this. Congratulations.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 13, 2005 5:51 PM