Dartmouth
The board of trustees at Dartmouth disliked several potential board member candidates that were threatening to uphold freedom of speech and high academic standards. To remedy the problem they completely changed the rules granting the board much stronger control over determining the potential candidates. One of the radical candidates, you know the ones in favor of free speech, that thanks to the new rules finds himself shut out, argues that the near absolute power of a University’s board is weakening. These members have much power because they control much of what the alumni knows about the university. This power is being drained by technology at is provides alumni members accesses to information about their university independent of the board members. He writes:
The new model is still taking shape, but a couple of its features have already become clear. One is the ease with which technology now makes it possible for alumni to circumvent the clumsy propaganda in alumni magazines to gather reliable, first-hand information about the state of affairs on their campuses. Perform a Google search on “Dartmouth,” for example, and you’ll discover that all the student newspapers appear online and that blogs cover every aspect of life in Hanover–sports, campus politics, and even college architecture.
The second feature of the new model follows irresistibly from the first. If alumni are able to learn as much about their alma maters as can administrators, then why shouldn’t they have a say in running the places?
The democraticization of information has begun and will continue to play a crucial role in enabling individuals to make informed decsions at the local level. In this case, what’s wrong with letting informed contributors have some say in the policy and procedures of that institute? It seems perfectly reasonable to me.