Board of Trustee Changes impact admissions decision

Colleges & Universities Dartmouth College
46

<p>About the money. How better to shoot yourself in the foot than to tell your financial backers to go to hell? The one poll I saw had 92% of the alumni not in favor of the Board’s action. Twenty years ago and further back, Dartmouth was always the leader in percent of alumni giving. Hearing this repeatedly was part and parcel of the Dartmouth experience. No longer. Now they are in the top 5 - bunched with a group significantly behind Amherst. Next year doesn’t look good.</p>

<p>Powerline, in a post titled “The $64 million question” speculated about this and seemed certain that the board would never have pulled such a stunt unless they had some big, big donations lined up to cover shortfall that is sure to occur in the traditional alumni giving. <a href=“http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive.../09/018458.php[/url]”>http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive.../09/018458.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Sure enough, this was confirmed the next day by Association of Alumni executive committee member David Gale
<a href=“http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive.../09/018468.php[/url]”>http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive.../09/018468.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>"Early on in the conversation, I pointed to two parts of their report: that alumni giving hit record levels last year, and that they acknowledged that alumni sentiment was “overwhelmingly” (their word) against this move. I then asked if they were concerned that alumni donations would fall off. Christine acknowledged that they probably will …Ed then volunteered that there were some alumni who had specifically withheld donations to the college because of the “uncertainty” in the election process. At that point, I said that I didn’t see how a small number of alumni on one hand could balance the loss of a large number of alumni donors on the other “unless we’re talking about millions and millions of dollars.” Ed’s response: “Well, we are.”</p>

<p>Arranging for millions and millions of dollars in donations to be withheld does not seem to me the likely actions of someone whose decisions are being driven by financial considerations.</p>