CW: Since you joined the Board in 2004, what have you focused on?
TJR: By virtue of the way I joined, (Rodgers was a petition candidate) I knew I'd be carefully scrutinized, so I made a decision up front to avoid political issues. I knew that if I were typecast as a "conservative," which I'm not, I'd end up fighting meaningless battles. [I, for example, never squabbled over whether or not Dartmouth should have a Dartmouth mascot, or whether people should be allowed to wear it. I deliberately avoid getting involved in what I call left-right political issues.]
Instead, I focused on two things I thought extremely important to the College. One was free speech and the question of whether the First Amendment prevailed on the Dartmouth campus, which in my opinion it did not when I joined the Board.
The other is making sure that Dartmouth continues to be the "best college in the world." Many of our peer institutions, those that haven't been as committed to undergraduate education as we have, are now saying they need to improve their undergraduate programs. My memory of undergraduate education at Dartmouth squares with what students find today. In my day, Dartmouth put undergraduates in small classes with some of the best professors in the world. I want to make sure Dartmouth keeps that treasure whole.
Being the world's best college means small classes, an excellent student-to-faculty ratio, high-quality faculty, and a mission statement that acknowledges that teaching is the primary reason for the existence of the university.
[Dartmouth students have a deep respect and love for the place that transformed them from high school kids to adults. And only when you get to graduate school—I got my Master's and Ph.D. at Stanford—do you find out by comparison that you were indeed at Dartmouth because the teaching environment was so spectacular. Dartmouth graduates are famed for their loyalty to the College, and in my discussions with undergraduates, and certainly based on my election which was based on the memory I just told you, I believe that is the single most unifying characteristic of Dartmouth graduates.
So I've been working on both things only, and I refuse to engage on other things. You only get so many minutes of air time in any Board meeting, so losing that focus would subtract from my ability to influence the College. I also felt that as an outsider coming through a path that may not have been regarded as friendly, that I had to focus on two things that were unassailable and avoid the squabble of the day.]
CW: What about free speech?
TJR: The College has made good progress. There is an institute called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). It has its roots defending students who protested the Vietnam War and were attacked by conservative administrators. FIRE's free speech rating for Dartmouth—it has a simple red, yellow, and green code—was red; most colleges in the United States have a red or yellow rating.
I found an ally in President Jim Wright. He made powerful statements about free speech and I submitted them to FIRE. The College's rating went from red to green. I'm not completely satisfied with free speech on campus, but we've made tremendous progress.
CW: What's the most enjoyable thing about coming back to Dartmouth as a Trustee?
TJR: It's wonderful being back in a place of great beauty that I hadn't visited for 20 years. I've enjoyed talking to students, hearing about their aspirations, their love for the College, and sometimes their gripes. The nitty gritty interaction with people is the best part.
CW: What haven't I asked?
TJR: You could have asked: Is Dartmouth really the best college in the world? The answer is: Yes, and I hope we can keep it that way.
[CW: If an alumnus could be a fly on the wall of a Board meeting, what might he or she see?
TJR: The work of the Board is divided into committee meetings and general sessions. The committee meetings deal with general events. For example, I'm on the finance committee. We review budgets on a yearly basis. We review progress toward the budgets. We discuss our recommendations and approve tuition hikes, and generally spend an extra couple of hours each meeting along with a special set of committee meeting minutes to deal with finances.
Our work is summarized by Trustee Russ Carson '65, who is chair of that committee. There are other committees, including one on governance.
There's a meeting on plant and facilities in terms of the building going on right now on campus. There is no committee—and I think there should be—on academic excellence. There is controversy in general, not so much at Dartmouth, but in general about how deeply a Board ought to get involved in academic matters. I think there ought to be a committee on academic excellence, and at the appropriate level, the Board ought to be aware of the theory and plan of the College with regard to academics and be able to review progress.]
[CW: When you joined the Board, were there any surprises, either in the matters you were discussing or the manner in which you were dealing with them?
TJR: I joined the Board as a candidate who was elected by petition by alumni, and I was elected over a slate of what I will call "inside candidates" in 2004. So I've endured somewhat of a—I'll call it institutional isolation in which I feel I'm not yet trusted as someone who's working in the interests of the College. I'm often treated as a person who's a member of some sort of opposition. That dynamic has ebbed and flowed during my time on the Board. It was very strong in the beginning. At the end of my first year, when people started to understand I was putting my time and energy toward the Board and was contributing with a lot of thoughtful material, I felt more accepted.
I've delivered as much thoughtful management critique, and I'm not talking anti-administration, but as much thoughtful management critique as any Trustee. Then, we went into this abysmally unfortunate political period for the past year and a half in which—I'll use the word "the establishment" brought forward the constitutional change which would have impaired the ability of petition trustees to be elected -- that created an acrimonious period on the Board that has burned goodwill on both sides. Now that that election is over, we're back having meetings where we're treating each other as individuals again, not members of factions, and the meetings are getting better. But it's been a struggle.
For me, it's been a personal struggle. I'm a Silicon Valley CEO. I've built and run a company in Silicon Valley. I have a Ph.D., and I'm used to being respected by both the community and the engineering community. When I run into disrespect, which has happened at many occasions at Dartmouth, it's a difficult thing for me to deal with.]
[CW: What do you think the biggest looming issue is—not just for Dartmouth, but for other institutions like Dartmouth?
TJR: Based on my experience as a Trustee at Dartmouth, the cost of education to the public has been going up at an unsustainable rate. It's something like eight percent per year that (tuition and fees are) are going up. The net result is that more and more financial aid is required to allow all students to come to Dartmouth. Dartmouth has the policy that no one will be turned away who is qualified because of financial need. We're one of a handful of colleges and universities committed to this policy.
The fact is that our tuition and fees are middling in the Ivy League, and the rate at which they've grown is also about average. Nothing can rise at a rate much faster than the economy forever without running into economic brick walls of various kinds. I don't know how far away that brick wall is. It may be 10 or 15 years away, it may be five years away. But I'm concerned about the rising cost of education. That's one major issue that I think all the top schools in the country are going to have to deal with.]
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