This isn't much of a diary, but I wanted to follow up MissLaura's April 27 front page article The VRWC at Dartmouth and beyond.
In that article, she informed Kossacks of the latest chapter in the attempt by Dartmouth Review and PowerLine wingnuts to co-opt Dartmouth College. She further alerted Dartmouth alumni -- of which I am one -- of the need to cast votes in the College's Association of Alumni elections, and explained in some detail why we should vote for the Dartmouth Undying slate rather than the (misnamed) "parity" slate put up by the other side.
Voting in the Association of Alumni election ended today, and a few minutes ago I received an email message with some very, very positive results.
UPDATE: Alumni Relations Office press release, with vote totals...
From the Dartmouth Undying organization:
This is a great victory for the Unity Slate and for Dartmouth. The average margin of victory was over 5,200 votes. Dartmouth Undying is glad to have supported this outstanding group of alumni. We look forward to working with the Unity Slate, the Trustees, and all Dartmouth organizations to restore civil discourse to the resolution Dartmouth's issues within the Dartmouth family.
For the results go to voxthevote.org.
- President - John H. Mathias Jr. '69
- First Vice President - Cheryl A. Bascomb '82
- Second Vice President - Douglas H. Keare '56, TU/TH '57
- Secretary/Treasurer - David P. Spalding '76
Executive Committee Members:
- Marian Zischke Baldauf '84
- Veree Hawkins Brown '93
- John S. Engelman '68
- Ronald G. Harris '71
- Kaitlin Jaxheimer '05
- Otho E. Kerr, III '79
- Ronald B. Schram '64
While the final tallies haven't yet shown up on Vox the Vote as I write this, what it does show is that some 39% of Dartmouth alumni voted by mail or online. Additional votes may have been cast in person prior to the Association of Alumni meeting that took place this morning, but that number would have been a mere trickle compared to the tens of thousands of votes by non-attendees.
All in all, this was a vastly higher turnout than in previous elections for the Association of Alumni or for alumni trustees. If similar to other membership organizations, prior votes probably drew far less than 10% participation.
That, in and of itself, explains both why the good guys won this time and why the offensive and odious likes of Todd Zywicki pollutes Dartmouth's Board of Trustees. Simply put, Zywicki and his cronies were able to operate "under the radar", installing their petiotion candidates on the Board while the general populace of Dartmouth alumni weren't watching and weren't voting knowledgeably. Now that their coup attempt has come to light, they're kaput (I hope).
It reminds me a bit of the 2004 coup attempt in the Sierra Club, when an anti-immigration group tried to elect a number of board members. In that case, the non-crazies were more alert, and the nuts were more overt. I recall rejoining the Sierra Club that year, specifically to help defeat the xenophobes.
As a sidenote, the defeated candidate for Second Vice President of the Association of Alumni was Paul Mirengoff '71, better known as one of the three Dartmouth alums at that former Time "Blog of the Year", PowerLine. I must point out that the trio are two '71s and a '73.
As a '72, I strongly and unequivocally disavow any connection whatsover with them.
Many thanks to MissLaura for alerting me and many other Dartmouth alumni to this coup attempt, and for helping to defeat it.