Friday, January 4, 2008

Essential Reading

Here are some interesting reports from Student Assembly and other student groups from the past several years:

Committee on Standards Student Task Force, October 2006
Student Governance Review Task Force, May 2007
Club Sports at Dartmouth, Spring 2006
Minority Professor Recruitment and Retention, Winter 2007
Student Budget Advisory Committee Quarterly Report, Winter 2006

And some older reports:
The Soul of Dartmouth: the Academic Direction of Dartmouth College, 2000-2001
Student and Faculty Relations, 2000-2001
The State of Student Involvement, 2000-2001
Undergraduate Teaching Initiative, 2001-2002

14 comments:

Tim Dreisbach '71 said...

David:

Thank you for posting these. I think it sad that "hot button" posts result in dozens of rapid-response emotional replies from alumni (mostly anonymous), but putting up papers that merit serious consideration yields only silence.

I stongly encourage people to read these. They do come from students. My personal recommendations:
1. The Soul of Dartmouth Academic Direction study and recommendations, something I first saw soon after moving back to Hanover.
2. The Committee on Standards task force recommendations, which both trustee candidates Smith and Wolf encouraged the College to act on last spring before the student authors graduated (the Administration deferred).

Dartmouth is a wonderful institution, but that does not mean it cannot be made better or that attempts to push it forward should be dissed simply because they cause some discomfort.

Anonymous said...

Why does Tim Dreisbach think that the tiniest details of Dartmouth student affairs are his business, or that Dartmouth should take his advice seriously? Does living in Hanover make him an expert on education, or anything else? It's one thing to follow developments with interest, but it's another to pretend to pass judgment or make recommendations -- where does he get off talking about "attempts to push it forward" that have nothing to do with him? Does he have any experience in this area, other than having graduated more than 30 years ago?

Anonymous said...

Anon: Can you please list what recommendations Dreisbach made here, other than that others go read the student opinions and suggestions? All I can see is that he wants alumni as well as the administration to be aware of these student comments.

What are you afraid of that you want to distract from the content of these reports with a personal attack?

Tim Dreisbach '71 said...

"Does living in Hanover make him an expert on education... AND everything else?"

ABSOLUTELY!

Residents of NYC and Cambridge Mass should give it a try. (IMHO, of course.)

For the record, I am now a resident of the People's Republic of Vermont, along with my fellow neo-con cabalists on the AoA EC (Gado and Gale). The water on this side of the Connecticut valley promotes more liberal thinking.

Let's maintain some humor here, shall we.

Anonymous said...

Tim, why are you responding here and not on the AoA blog? There are repeated requests for you to explain the reasoning behind your lawsuit since you provided a post that does nothing but obfuscate that reasoning.

Anonymous said...

Tim does sound like a busybody, encouraging people to read several studies, some of which are limited to student life (such as sports or student government), implicitly encouraging the College to act on the COSTF recommendations
by supporting others' encouragement, encouraging peoples' "attempts to push it [Dartmouth] forward" and implying that he is making such an attempt -- all this on top of supporting a lawsuit against Dartmouth that purports to relate to corporate governance.

Anonymous said...

Seems like an engaged alumni volunteer to me, like many others. Maybe he has just become a little more public than others through these forums. What in his encouragements are objectionable?

Anonymous said...

Tim is an enraged alumni volunteer -- how else do you explain his acquiescence to the (enraged) Frank Gado lawsuit? And do volunteers really sue the college for breach of contract? Isn't part of volunteering not getting paid? I don't expect to get something in return when I donate, at least.

Anonymous said...

Are the gang somehow getting paid to sue?

Anonymous said...

Then you do not donate in sufficiently large amounts. I assure you most of the big ticket donors have stipulations around their gifts. I am waiting to see the next new dorm labelled "Unconditionally Given Anonymous Hall".

Anonymous said...

Fayerweather, McNutt, and Topliff are named for donors who gave unrestricted gifts.

The Gang is not getting paid to sue, but why would that matter? They are claiming that the alumni bought and paid for (by contract) the right to elect half the elected members of the board forever. Their lawsuit says that their payment was a promise in 1891 to raise money in the future. So much for "alumni volunteers" -- the Gang of Six is trying to get what it thinks is its money's worth. Tim is trying to increase his influence (and that of alumni in general) over Dartmouth, against the will of the college.

Anonymous said...

"I assure you most of the big ticket donors have stipulations around their gifts."

Absolutely true. Since the alumni never recorded a stipulation about a right to elect half the trustees, then it must not have been very important to them -- or maybe no such stipulation existed at all.

Anonymous said...

"alumni never recorded a stipulation about a right to elect half the trustees"

Huh? They certainly did.

Anonymous said...

Anon 10:04 said Tim is trying to increase the influence of alumni in general over Dartmouth, against the will of the college.

More accurately a 6-3 majority of the representatives elected by alumni are trying to keep the trustees from reducing the influence of alumni in general over Dartmouth, against the will of the Administration.