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The Dartmouth
July 23, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Budget woes mark turbulent Fall term

College-wide budget cuts cast a long shadow over Dartmouth last term, with administrative decisions to eliminate the swimming and diving teams, downscale libraries, reduce course offerings and lay off employees provoking notable backlash from faculty and students.

Fall term was also marked by an unusual amount of political activism, including demonstrations against war in Iraq and an energetic Get Out the Vote campaign conducted by the College Democrats.

Although College President James Wright had announced significant budget cuts -- necessitated by losses in the College endowment -- in August, the campus did not feel the concrete effects of the downscaling until mid-October, when recently-hired Librarian of the College Richard Lucier announced plans for cutting $1 million from the library budget.

Lucier's plans to integrate Sherman Art Library into the newly-renovated Baker-Berry complex, turn Sanborn Library into a reading room and cut student work hours prompted an outpouring of protest from faculty, staff and students. In November, 540 students signed a petition decrying the cuts that they presented to Dean of the College James Larimore and Provost Barry Scherr.

But resentment over the library cuts was partially eclipsed when administrators announced the elimination of the varsity swimming and diving teams. Although Larimore, Scherr and Athletic Director Josie Harper defended the necessity of the cuts, which they said were preferable to making across-the-board reductions that could compromise all teams, few spoke out in the College's favor.

The day after the cuts were announced, hundreds of students marched through campus chanting in protest before staging a midnight rally in front of Larimore and Wright's houses.

Among the slate of objections were complaints that the decision had been made without sufficient input from students, athletes or coaches, and that the late-in-the-term announcement -- made just before the College closed for Thanksgiving break -- left little time to work out alternative solutions.

But administrators maintained that the $211,000 saved by eliminating the teams could not be more painlessly achieved, and despite condemnations from the Student Assembly, rumors of alumni donations to restore the team and bids to "buy" the team on eBay, they stood their ground.

The swim cuts not only came in the wake of library downsizing, but also just weeks after the College announced that layoffs of about 30 employees were imminent. This too provoked a strong reaction from the campus, including a petition that circulated among faculty proposing salary reductions instead of job elimination.

Administrators had earlier indicated that reductions in academic department budgets would necessitate reductions in course offerings, despite Wright's firm insistence in a speech to the faculty that the academic integrity of the College would not be compromised.

As a way of channeling discontent, the Student Assembly arranged to collect and synthesize student opinion in a report that Scherr promised he would consider at the beginning of Winter term. The Assembly also held a Community Forum with Scherr at the end of the term in hopes of soothing disagreement through discussion.

Campus protest also manifested itself in the political arena, with a week-long "Why War? Think About It" campaign sponsored by various campus groups, including the Campus Greens. The campaign challenged students to rethink the justifications for war with Iraq and culminated in a rally outside the Collis Center. A day later, nearly 60 students traveled to Washington D.C. to participate in national rally.

In the week leading up to the Nov. 5 general election, the Campus Democrats organized a Get Out the Vote campaign that included distributing flyers around campus and running shuttle buses to and from the polls.

In response to the large numbers of same-day voter registrations -- many of whom were Dartmouth students -- the state Republican Party sent lawyers to Hanover to challenge students' residency. Though members of the College Democrats strongly criticized the GOP's actions and lamented the fact that several key New Hampshire races ultimately went to the Republican candidates, they said they were impressed with their success in getting students to the polls.