WHAT BECOMES OF THE LEFTIST PROJECT IF ALUMNI HAVE A SAY...:

Election revives debate at Ivy school: Competing visions at Dartmouth (Marcella Bombardieri, May 14, 2005, Boston Globe)

The victory of two dark-horse candidates for Dartmouth College's board of trustees this week has revived a struggle over competing visions for the future of the small Ivy League campus.

Peter Robinson, who wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan and is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Todd J. Zywicki, a George Mason University law professor who contributes to a libertarian-leaning web log, ran on platforms that were scathingly critical of the administration, saying it has become too politically correct and has stifled fraternities, de-emphasized athletics, and shortchanged teaching in favor of research.

''Dartmouth's leadership has turned its back on [its] great legacy," Zywicki wrote in his campaign statements. ''The administration has enlarged class sizes, starved the athletic program, and attacked the sororities and fraternities."

Robinson and Zywicki, who gathered 500 signatures each to win a place on the ballot without the approval of an official alumni council, represent a vocal strain of conservative Dartmouth alumni who for more than a decade have contended that the university has gone astray. It is unclear what percent of alumni share their views or what kind of influence their presence on the board will have on Dartmouth's future.

Some alumni have expressed alarm. ''Both petition candidates, in short, seem to me to long nostalgically for some 'Dear Old Dartmouth' of the past, without admitting the idealized past they crave represents a Dartmouth that was often hard on women, gays and lesbians, and minorities; monolithic in terms of its social life; and fostered an anti-intellectual environment," Susan Ackerman, a 1980 graduate and chairwoman of the religion department, wrote on a website opposing the two petition candidates.

Be still my beating heart...

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 14, 2005 2:35 PM