2010 Association of Alumni Executive Committee Candidates

Alpha May Bond, Jr. ’52
Petition Nominated Candidate for First Vice President

Biography
Al Bond has spent his life in education. Following military service, he taught at Thetford Academy in Vermont. He earned his M.A. from Columbia and Ph.D. from Emory before teaching for 35 years at Mercer University, serving as Chair of the Sociology and Anthropology departments and chairing the curriculum committee during a period of major changes. Al was also president of Mercer’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors. At Dartmouth, he graduated cum laude and co-founded the Thomas Jefferson Club. Now in active retirement, Al volunteers for several non-profits locally.

Statement
II adopt the statement of J. Michael Murphy and urge the election of our entire Dartmouth United slate.

My ties with Dartmouth go back to the 18th century. I am descended from Judge Nathaniel Niles, a colleague of Daniel Webster who received an honorary doctorate in 1791 and served as a Dartmouth trustee from 1793 to 1820. My history is very much bound up with Dartmouth’s. So I am keenly aware of Dartmouth’s late-19th-century crisis which brought about the 1891 agreement with the Association of Alumni to ensure parity on the Board.

This was a turning point in Dartmouth’s history. Shortly after the agreement was reached, Dartmouth installed William Jewett Tucker, the first in a line of truly great leaders. When Tucker became president, Dartmouth had 26 faculty and 300 students, was deep in debt, and had a small physical plant. When he retired in 1909, there were 81 faculty, 1100 students, and more than 20 new buildings. Tucker’s biographer wrote that he “refounded Dartmouth.” This refounding was largely made possible by an outpouring of alumni support following the 1891 agreement—and by the active participation of alumni Trustees nominated by the Association.

Today Dartmouth needs vigorous alumni support just as it did a century ago. The College has seen some loose management practices and suffered severe endowment losses. The result is a reduction in the 2010 and 2011 budgets by over $100 million.

The more than 20-percent drop in alumni participation in annual giving between the McLaughlin years and the Wright years is alarming. In these financially stressful times, continuing along this course is unthinkable.

By working with President Jim Kim and the Trustees to resolve the parity issue, our Dartmouth United slate believes we can bring back many of the alumni who have walked away. This—not words and empty promises—can restore Dartmouth’s lost unity.

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