After spending millions of dollars over recent years to bring the student body closer, the administration finally succeeded without spending a dime. Near the end of this past fall term, it was announced that Dartmouth would cut its swimming and diving teams, saving approximately $200,000 annually. The decision was met with near-unanimous student outrage and a level of unity heretofore unknown to our community. The timing of the decision was very cleverly executed by the administration, coming shortly before The Dartmouth finished publishing for the term, and immediately before the beginning of exam period. These tactics of burying unwelcome news by releasing information strategically at inconvenient times have been employed all too frequently in recent years by the Dartmouth administration.
While part of me is impressed by the tactical brilliance of the administration in the way it concealed the decision until the opposition would be unable to react, that feeling is nonetheless overshadowed by the genuine dismay I feel about the harm these decisions inflicted upon our community. Make no mistake about the timing: it was brilliant. Had it come a day earlier, there would have been time for aggrieved students, faculty, and other community members to take to the op-ed pages to protest not only the decision, but also the administration's subsequent silence in the face of reasoned argument. The cuts were made public shortly before Thanksgiving break. After students returned from the break they had precious few days before exams began. The fait accomplis hurt students by depriving them of a sport they supported and fostered further disenchantment within the Dartmouth "community" due to the secretive manner in which it was reached. Nonetheless, it was of lesser importance to most students than the specter of upcoming finals.
After finals, students dispersed, and their sense of outrage may have accompanied them on break, not to return for Winter term. It is early January " over three weeks since the announcement " and we are only now beginning to have any public debate over this decision that garnered national attention in the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and other publications. Chances are that many students have forgotten how angry they were at the conclusion of last term about the cut, and the manner in which they were decided and announced. Furthermore, many students who are enrolled this term were not on campus this past Fall term, so they may be unaware of the cuts or of some of the more troubling details about how the cuts were reached and disseminated.
I would caution against an acquiescent mindset. Has there been a satisfactory explanation for why the decision was announced when it was, and thus deprived recruited athletes of the ability to apply early to other schools? Hasn't the rationale behind why the College would not necessarily accept a donation to endow the team also been disconcerting?
There is a subtext to the decision not to accept contributions for the affected teams that may not be intuitively clear. Most people are understandably puzzled about why the College would ever refuse money, particularly if the funds could save sports from being eliminated. But, in what is perhaps the worst kept secret in Parkhurst, the College is about to embark on a capital campaign. It is now in the process of quietly obtaining pledges from major donors. When the campaign is announced, the College hopes to have a substantial portion of the goal, say one-third, already raised. It is a psychological tool used to make the target seem more achievable, and it is commonly employed in collegiate fundraising. In that context, the College's refusal to accept donations makes more sense. By taking donations earmarked for the swimming and diving programs, money might be diverted away from the priorities of the Administration. The implied message is that the College knows how to spend the donors' money better than the donors themselves do. I think alumni and other donors should be insulted by this paternalistic attitude that presumes alumni do not understand the College well enough to donate their money to worthy causes.
As much as it hurts our reputation to become the only Ivy League school without a swim team, more troubling is the attitude that accompanied the decision. A pattern has become predictable: the administration decides on a policy change that it knows will be unpopular with students and/or alumni, and the decision is held until the student body is weakest to combat the change, which is then presented as a non-negotiable fait accomplis.
This tactic was used three years ago when the decision to force CFS houses to remove bars from their basements was announced during the first few weeks of sophomore summer, when houses' nascent leadership was at its weakest. Two years ago, during a very similar time of year, it was announced that Safety and Security would begin patrolling these same independently-owned CFS houses. In both cases the policies were implemented largely without change, due to insufficient student outcry. It was not always like this; when the Student Life Initiative was announced midway through Winter term it led to large protests and the cancellation of many Winter Carnival events. Clearly, the inhabitants of Parkhurst have learned from that experience and will not make the mistake of allowing student opinion to affect a pre-ordained policy in the future.
So what are we, as students, to do? The decision to cut the swimming and diving teams seems to have passed the point of review. Administrators have invested so much political capital in the decision that to reverse their position would make them appear weak and impotent. In all likelihood it will prove impossible to save the swim or diving teams. But what we can do is act to prevent similar occurrences in the future. The one thing that administrators fear, far more than students, is press coverage. I am sure the negative article in the New York Times about our College was grating to President Wright and others in Parkhurst.
I commend Jenny Kunkel '05 for auctioning off the swim team on eBay to draw attention to the plight of the athletes. The protest at Parkhurst, and the media coverage it generated, was also tremendously helpful. The current pattern of fiats emanating from Parkhurst without any student input will continue so long as those administrators think it will be costless. Media attention may have come too late to save these teams, but if it is frequent enough it will dissuade the administration from acting so recklessly in the future. Let's cause some ruckus.
