Stephen Smith — Petition Candidate for Dartmouth Trustee

"When I look into the future, I don't see signals that the balance [between teaching and research] will be maintained. And I think research will win out. This institution thinks that because in the past it has cared about teaching, it can take it for granted. And I don't think you can do that."

"According to the registrar's website, Dartmouth's economics department is offering 39 courses this term.  Some 35 have capped enrollments, but only nine of those caps are set at under 20 [students].  Of the 35 capped courses, as of April 8, 11 had enrollments that met or exceeded their caps, and another 13 were within three students of their caps.  Those data speak for themselves.  For an institution that sells itself on its supposedly small and accessible classes, the facts are pathetically out of line."

  --The Dartmouth, Apr. 16, 2007

available at http://thedartmouth.com/2007/04/16/opinion/priorities/print/

"[Stephen Smith] is the first and only candidate to endorse reform of the Committee on Standards, where Dartmouth lags miles behind in the area of due process. He is, again, the first and only candidate to recognize Dartmouth's bureaucracy problem, where the number of administrators keeps increasing almost exponentially every year -- along with tuition. And while in Hanover for Winter Carnival, Smith spoke with several campus groups and made a strong case that the current administration has let Dartmouth's focus on the undergraduate slip toward a more research-based institution.