On what initiated the race to save Dartmouth's swimming and diving teams, key negotiators point to a packet of printouts.
It's not as much what the 26-page report offered in content -- the proposals outlined have been described as rudimentary at best. It was the message's tone and foresight -- lacking in the fierce emotions of past encounters and respectful of the College's stated goal of preserving its capital campaign.
Authored and presented Dec. 9 by Student Assembly Vice President Julia Hildreth '05 and Student Life Committee Chair Amit Anand '03 to four administration representatives, the packet stressed compromise by seeking alternative means to the College's financial tangles, with examples of past precedents and rough-draft proposals for solutions. Swim captains Mia Yocco '03 and Louis Fidel '03 sat in to voice specific team concerns.
It marked the first time the students had met together with Dean of the College James Larimore, Provost Barry Scherr, Acting Vice President of Finance Adam Keller and Senior Assistant to the President Sheila Culbert.
The decision to have non-team members speak for most of the presentation was intentional, Yocco said. "One of the things we wanted to prove on Dec. 9 was that we were not a special interest group, that we were the College as a community."
Those who were in attendance told The Dartmouth that this meeting paved the way for negotiations and the development of firm plans.
Agreeing to continue discussions at the Dec. 9 meeting, the College also reevaluated some of its former verdicts. The issue of Karl Michael Pool, previously deemed irreparable and in need of a $27 million replacement, was quickly dropped. The inaccurate assessment had resulted from a 1999 survey in which the swim team's wants -- not needs -- were measured, men's coach Jim Wilson said.
"People were told to aim for the stars," Yocco said. "I think that some of the results of the survey were misinterpreted."
Larimore added: "Recent arguments have probably moved our pool into the top half of the Ivy League."
"The thing that really made a difference that night was that the students understood the College's need to address a very real budget problem and not to divert fundraising," Larimore said. "That suggested some room to develop a proposal."
Without the turbulent haze of emotions that came with the teams' Nov. 25 elimination, alternative plans could be drafted, he said. "What was lost was that [the College] had made a commitment to keep listening."
Larimore argued that other positions Dartmouth took after making cuts had also been misconstrued. The administration's refusal to accept donations made in the immediate aftermath of the cuts, for example, was because "lots of numbers thrown around had not been validated -- much was rumor in terms of pledges." Fears of earmarked funds harming the College's capital campaign were also a prime concern, he said.
But while Dartmouth's Alumni Council issued a stern statement the weekend of Dec. 1 urging the administration to reconsider, the possibility of alumni withholding substantial financial contributions was not particularly worrisome, Larimore said.
"I did hear from a number of alums, some who expressed regret but also understanding," he said. "Others had strong feelings that the College should come up with an alternative."
As to his widely-circulated quote that the College wouldn't let itself be controlled by outside parties -- such as the swim team's supporters -- Larimore told The Dartmouth that the statement was taken out of context.
"Nobody here considers students, alumni or parents as outsiders," he said. "What I described was that we focus our fundraising efforts keeping priorities in mind."
Larimore noted that the overwhelming media attention the issue received was not a key component of the College's newfound willingness to reconsider. Instead, he said, the incessant phone calls from local and national outlets proved as more of a distraction to working towards a solution.
"The face-to-face conversations that occurred were the things that ultimately made the biggest difference," he said. "The biggest concern within Dartmouth was really our students, and then concerns about parents and alumni second."
For Wilson, the administration's personal encounters with the swim team members contributed to their change of attitude.
The students added that a statistic released by the Assembly showing 81.8 percent of undergraduates in opposition to the administration and the multitude of options presented worked strongly in their favor.
"Once we really challenged them to respond, everything started rolling," Fidel said.
Men's swim team co-captain Paul Schned '03 added: "Pressure from so many different sides may have been what caused the administration to buckle."
"Never before had there been an intellectual discussion about why this was happening," Anand said.
The negotiations process proceeded throughout December and early January. Alumni and parent fundraisers worked through different options with the College, ultimately overturning the Nov. 25 decision and maintaining the swimming and diving programs will continue for at least another 10 seasons.
The newly approved John C. Glover Fund for the Support of Swimming and Diving will provide the swim team with over $2 million in funding. Dartmouth varsity swimmers from teams of the 1950s -- in particular John Ballard '55, Tom Kelsey '54 and Steve Mullins '54 -- were instrumental in establishing the fund and planning the fundraising of the needed $2 million.
All parties contacted by The Dartmouth expressed satisfaction with the results.
"It was a situation in which the discussion was very, very general but the solution had to pay attention to specific details," Larimore said. "Ultimately, where we ended up was a creative and a fairly narrowly tailored way of fundraising -- this is a situation in which the solution is really in the details."
He added that if such a situation reoccurred, "I would definitely want to look for different ways to engage students up-front more than we were able to this fall."
