Governance in Higher Education

Some Universities with Direct Election of Trustees by Alumni

	# of Trustees	# Trustees by Direct Alumni Election	% Trustees by Direct Alumni Election
Amherst College	21	6	30%
Cornell University	56	8	14%
Dartmouth College*	26	8	31%
Davidson College	24	8	33%
Duke University	36	12	33%
Harvard University Overseers**	30	30	100%
Oberlin College	30	9	24%
Princeton University	40	13	33%
Wesleyan University	33	9	27%
Williams College	25	5	20%
Tufts University	41	10	24%
Yale University	19	6	32%

Average # of trustees elected by direct vote of alumni = 27%, excluding Harvard**
Average # of trustees elected by direct vote of alumni including Harvard = 33%

* After several successful elections by independent candidates to Dartmouth College Board, that body referred to the alumni a vote to end the Charter’s practice of an equal number of 8 elected and 8 unelected trustees, plus two ex officio members. In an election that many charge was heavily influenced by the control of access to voters by the college, the alumni changed the previous centuries-old practice to the current ratio of 8 elected to 16 unelected trustees, plus the two ex officio members. After the vote, the Alumni Donor Participation rate dropped from 54% in 2007, to 44% in 2008.

** Colgate argues that Harvard’s Board of Overseers is simply akin to Colgate’s Alumni Council, i.e. an advisory-only public relations and fundraising group. In fact, the Harvard Board of Overseers has policy-making authority; it must approve major teaching and administrative appointments and changes in institutional policy and has veto power over appointments to the Fellows, the corporate governing board of Harvard.

*** Princeton University is a progressive model of recognizing the importance of alumni in directing the school’s future. In 1900, the board amended the charter and bylaws to permit five trustees to be elected annually by the alumni. This number became eight in 1917. In 1934, an amendment provided that two alumni trustees be elected annually, one from a region by vote of alumni living in that region, the other chosen at large by vote of the entire alumni body, in both instances from among candidates nominated by a nine-man committee of the Alumni Council. In 1963, a ninth alumni trustee representing the graduate school was elected for a four-year term once every four years from among candidates nominated by the Princeton Graduate Alumni Association and voted upon by the entire alumni body. In 1969, four more alumni trustees were added, one elected each year from the graduating class by vote of the members of the junior and senior classes and of the two most recently graduated classes, to serve a term of four years. The latter provision was made retroactive by the election of two trustees in May 1969.