Protest Group of Dartmouth Alumni Spends $300,000 on Ads

Dartmouth alumni have been at odds lately over governance issues at the college. But the squabbling parties can agree on one point: The alumni are remarkably attentive to their alma mater — and are willing to pay for it.

The latest example of alumni engagement there is the Committee to Save Dartmouth College, an alumni group that today promoted its cause with an advertisement on the Web site of The New York Times. The ad, which has been on the newspaper’s home page all day, is part of a $300,000 campaign that includes future print ads in the Times and The Wall Street Journal, according to the group.

Steven F. Smith, a Dartmouth alumnus and law professor at the University of Virginia who was elected this year to Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees and is involved in the committee, said it is concerned about the board’s review of the process by which new trustees are selected, such as through the hotly contested alumni-trustee elections of recent years.

“The goal is simply to raise awareness,” Mr. Smith said of the ad, arguing that the board’s review has been secretive. He said most alumni, regardless of their partisan leanings, “would be in favor of preserving the prominent role of alumni in governance.”

David P. Spalding, Dartmouth’s vice president for alumni relations, said the board had been “very transparent about this process.” He said the board’s chairman, Charles E. (Ed) Haldeman, had sent three e-mail messages to alumni about the process over the last two months, directing them to a Dartmouth Web site and asking for feedback.

“The secret to me seems to be who’s behind Save Dartmouth,” Mr. Spalding said. The only contact listed on the group’s Web site is the “unofficial leader,” Andres Morton Zimmerman, a fictional character whose name refers to dormitories at Dartmouth. —Paul Fain