What exactly does the “Dartmouth Experience” mean? Over the past 18 months, we’ve learned that Dartmouth means many different things to everybody. Today, we students stand in an uncomfortable and uncertain situation. On the one hand, we are trapped between the staff and the Administration in a bitter fight, and, on the other hand, we are embroiled in a battle to save the individual pieces of our own Dartmouth Experiences.
Dartmouth is first and foremost an institution of higher learning. It also happens to be an institution that employs a large number of Upper Valley residents. But Dartmouth’s primary duty is to the College, not its facility. This is the angle from which I approach the Dartmouth Experience. Instead of focusing on the Dartmouth Experience, I propose we focus on the Dartmouth College Experience (I should clarify that I consider the professional schools part of the College in this sense).
This next notion seems to have been brushed aside in light of the pending staff cuts: intergenerational equity. Dartmouth has spent some of its endowment funds during this recession as a means of smoothing the operational deficits it currently faces. On this point, I must admit I am conflicted. A conscientious observer might wonder where this reactionary notion was when certain College administrators were playing Russian roulette with collateralized debt obligations and mortgage-backed securities. Suddenly, after almost $1 billion of our endowment just disappeared, we begin to talk about intergenerational equity. It is an enticing idea: It shows foresight that can serve as a long-term yardstick for the future and a productive mindset for the Administration as it begins to try to ensure that this kind of financial debacle does not reoccur, or least to this extent, in the future.
When the endowment began, it was a safety net. As endowments have grown over the years, colleges across the country (including Dartmouth) have done something risky: relying on their safety net for income. Akin to the United States, this College has lived beyond its means. As Warren Buffet said in his 2001 Chairman’s Letter for Berkshire Hathaway, “You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.” Well, the College was swimming naked, and now it’s time to put on some clothes. This is not to say that we should stop spending from our endowment, which would be ridiculous. We just cannot afford to be dependent on our endowment in the future—it’s swimming naked. Those who spout doom and gloom about the future of our endowment need to take a step back and remember that alumni have not stopped giving to the College.
It seems like every week Dartmouth has a new cause du jour. During these evanescent fads of devotion, a select few whip the campus into a frenzy. This recurring theme lends some credence to the idea that many Dartmouth students have a need to be offended by something. Out of some misplaced need to serve the cause of social justice, Dartmouth students convince themselves that if they stay offended, they are paying into some big karmic pot.
I feel the same way about layoffs as I do about alimony or palimony. The College does not have an obligation to continue to treat employees to “the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed” past any time horizon previously contracted.
That is why we have contracts: to allow for future flexibility in the work force employed by the College.
Here’s the problem: the unions want to have their cake and eat it too. They want high wages and high employment. Who pays for that? Well…we do.
In addition to pandering to Dartmouth’s hypochondria for imbalances in social justice, those who speak for the staff held a candlelight vigil to promote awareness of the job cut situation. Now, I agree that some members of the staff are an undeniably positive part of the Dartmouth College Experience, but I find it very hard to believe that the individuals pictured in the posters plastered around campus are actually the best part of the student in the picture’s Dartmouth Experience. And call me old-fashioned, but I tend to want to reserve candlelight vigils for deaths and missing persons. I don’t mean to sound harsh or indifferent, but when the people who represent the workers act the way they have, I become less and less inclined to sympathize with them. We are talking about loss of jobs, not loss of life. The situation has been sensationalized to the point that it has begun to lose credibility.
It is clear that we have a problem. Moreover, it is obvious that there are several groups who have very strong opinions about trimming the College’s budget by $100 million. So, who should decide what happens? It is useful to consider the different groups in terms of shareholders and stakeholders. Throughout the budget process, I have heard very little respect given for the fact that students pay up to $50,000 a year to go here. That makes us shareholders. Faculty and staff, however, are stakeholders. While they definitely have a stake in this college and certainly contribute to the experience, their role is fundamentally different from that of the students. The alumni are somewhere in the middle on this. Many donate to the College and are in that sense shareholders, but they are also stakeholders in that their personal reputations depend in part on the current actions and present reputation of this College.
Just as Dartmouth’s endowment has become more integrated into the fate of the world economy, our administrative structure has followed a trend in the management style of corporations throughout the world. We have seen stakeholders with increasing control in the College’s operations. It’s not a stretch to say that many Dartmouth students do not believe that Parkhurst actually cares about the students’ opinion. I don’t want token student advisory boards. I don’t want token Student Budget Forums. These groups waste our time and resources, things we have little to spare.
We, the students, pay for a service, and if the changes to the Dartmouth College Experience change that service substantially, then we ought to be consulted, and our voices ought to carry significant weight. If the majority of the student population believes that limiting staff layoffs is the right thing, then so be it, but if the majority of us believe, as I do, that this school needs some restructuring and streamlining, then give the people what they want.
