I love Dartmouth as much as anyone, but I've always been bothered by the great disparity between how much the College fawns over us and praises us as high school seniors, only to patronize us for the duration of our experience here. We are inundated with talk of community from the minute we set foot on campus, but it is apparently a community where students, the premise for this institution's existence, are not able to handle important decisions, control their own social lives or know how their own money is being spent.
After the swimming and diving teams were unexpectedly cut last fall, there was a student outcry not seen since the Student Life Initiative, partially in defense of the 70-year-old varsity programs and partially in outrage over poor administrative decisions made without proper student input. In addition to the avalanche of blitzes I received from outraged current students, I received a number of emails from Dartmouth alumni, young and old, reminding me that the fight for student voice was not new, but part of an ongoing struggle in which the students have never won. As Josh Green '00, our former Student Body President, commented, "Ignoring students is one of Dartmouth's oldest traditions. And, what's worse, it's an art that the administration has perfected."
But with 53 varsity swimmers who chose Dartmouth as a place where they could pursue both academics and athletics at the highest level, this is not an issue that will recede quickly. At the end of the fall, students from the swim team, the Student Assembly and the '03 Class Council displayed their creativity by presenting the administration with a series of alternatives. While students all over campus are furious that a swim team would be cut from our budget, this group has had the diligence to come up with a number of options for endowing the swim team through alumni and parents if the administration is unwilling to reconsider an operating budget that includes the swim team. Thus far, the inflexible administration has been unreceptive even to these alternative suggestions. Talks will continue at least until Jan. 13, at which point the Student Assembly will need your help.
Below is the last clause of the Student Assembly resolution passed in December regarding the swim team: "Let it be finally resolved that if the administration fails to adequately hear the concerns of students, it will take its concerns in regards to budget cuts and lack of administrative response to student input directly to the Board of Trustees, seeking a change of administrative attitudes or change of administration."
The Student Assembly rarely, if ever, issues ultimatums. This one authorizes us to appeal for a possible change of administration, and to endorse student protests against the administration and its decision. These words, however, will be weightless without the continuing support of the student body. Gandhi once noted, "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link," and thus it is imperative that in the fight for student voice we act as a united front.
The fact that students could mobilize for not one, but three protests in the midst of Thanksgiving break and exams is a testament to how much this issue means to a large percentage of the campus. Almost 2,000 students have blitzed us condemning the administration's decision. We must not allow winter break to slow our momentum, because it certainly did not slow the administration's momentum for making unpopular budget cuts. Additionally, now is not the time to question the legitimacy of the Student Assembly " that is the very thing that administrators do to act against the interests of every student. While I am comfortable that the Student Assembly is truly representative of the campus at this point, anyone who feels otherwise should still join us now to fight this year's most critical battle.
And anyone who is uncomfortable putting everything on the line for a swim team that they might not know personally or even care about, consider this: as one of America's best schools, paid for by exorbitant tuition fees, Dartmouth should offer a quality of life equal to that provided by its peer schools. Imagine that the one activity or organization you cared about most at Dartmouth was taken away without any warning and without any signal that the College had plans to bring it back in the future. In the case of the swimmers, this activity was in fact a major reason for attending Dartmouth in the first place.
This controversy is reminiscent of past issues, such as the anti-Greek rhetoric of the Student Life Initiative, the extremely expensive Leede Arena parties, Poison Ivy, the endless string of houses arbitrarily placed on probation, the door locks system, and every other issue where administrators acted without listening to students, pretended to hear their responses and then changed absolutely nothing in actions, approach or philosophy. When will students say they've had enough? It must be now, before we graduate and leave future generations of unsuspecting students to suffer this humiliation.
