The governance committee of Dartmouth College’s Board of Trustees plans to examine the fairness of the election process in which alumni choose seven of the board’s 17 members, the Associated Press reported. The alumni have rejected the nominees put forward by an Alumni Council in several recent elections, choosing instead petition candidates, sometimes labeled “outsiders” or “insurgents,” who have benefited from extensive publicity campaigns. Last month, Stephen F. Smith, a Dartmouth alumnus and law professor at the University of Virginia, became the fourth petition candidate in four years to win a seat on the board.

“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 committee said in a memorandum last week, according to a statement on Dartmouth’s Web site. 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.

The petition candidates’ campaigns have drawn support from conservative bloggers and increasingly have been seen as a new front in the culture wars. —Charles Huckabee