Even as it welcomed the latest "outsider" candidate picked as a trustee, Dartmouth College's Board of Trustees announced it would examine the fairness of alumni elections that led to his victory.

"The alumni trustee nomination process has recently taken on the characteristics of a partisan political campaign, becoming increasingly contentious, divisive and costly for the participants," the board's Governance Committee said in a memo endorsed by the board this week.

The five-member committee will "evaluate in a comprehensive manner the size and composition of the board and the method of trustee selection, in order to ensure that Dartmouth has the optimal governing body going forward," the college said in a news release Friday.

The stakes are high for the Ivy League school, where the trustees have the final say on policies and the hiring of top administrators.

College administrators and faculty have worked hard over the past two decades to make the campus more welcoming for women, minorities and scholars, in part by reining in rowdy fraternities and cracking down on underage drinking.

But some alumni have fought back, and last month, University of Virginia law professor Stephen Smith became the fourth trustee in four years to win a seat by using a once-obscure election rule allowing candidates to be nominated by petition.

All four support fraternities, sororities and traditional sports like football. They also have accused college administrators of diverting resources to Dartmouth's graduate schools at the expense of undergraduates, and have threatened to replace Dartmouth's current president, James Wright.

Wright's supporters and others complain trustee election rules are unfair because they require the Alumni Council to nominate at least three candidates for one open seat or four candidates for two openings. Alumni can vote for as many or as few candidates as they wish.

Council members say their nominees end up splitting mainstream votes, while a determined, conservative minority rallies behind a single petition candidate. An effort to change the rules to allow one-to-one races failed last year.

"We believe these issues must be addressed, lest many highly qualified alumni be dissuaded from seeking nomination," the trustees' Governance Committee said in its June 4 memo.

Shortly after Smith's victory last month, the head of the Alumni Council's nominating committee put it more bluntly.

"The current system for nominating and electing trustees is basically impossibly broken," said Rick Ruthier, also a past president of the council. "With the amount of money (Smith's) backers spent, people feel it's really impossible to run as a nominated candidate."

The petition trustees say most alumni trust them to be independent, while the council's nominees are too cozy with administrators.

Smith said his supporters - all alumni - raised about $75,000 for his campaign; his opponents estimated it was more than twice that amount and said he refused to disclose his contributors or the amounts they gave. One of Smith's opponents, San Diego Padres owner Sandy Alderson, spent about $75,000 and disclosed all donations.

Eight seats on the 18-member board of trustees are filled through alumni elections, while eight trustees are selected by the other board members. The remaining two are the governor of New Hampshire and the college president.

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