With many alumni calling for Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg's head after the unearthing of a letter he wrote to Swarthmore President Albert Bloom in 2000, controversy has erupted over the appropriateness of Furstenberg's comments and the impact his expressed views have had on Dartmouth athletics. In the letter, Furstenberg praises Bloom for his decision to cut Swarthmore's football program, writing, "football programs represent a sacrifice to the academic quality and diversity of entering first-year classes," and "sadly, football, and the culture that surrounds it, is antithetical to the academic mission of colleges such as ours."
While Furstenberg came under fire when his letter was made public last month, the criticism is unwarranted -- College employees have every right to express their personal opinions in private letters, ill-advised as Furstenberg was to send this one on Dartmouth letterhead. Rather, it would have been wrong if Furstenberg had personally done anything in his official capacity to the detriment of the football program. But football has remained Dartmouth's top athletic priority, and athletic recruits have continued to be accepted at the same, if not a higher level, than in previous years -- as evidenced by the number of athletes accepted early to the Class of 2009.
If there is someone to blame for the steady decline of the football team since its undefeated 1996 season, it is the College higher-ups who actually set policy. Beginning with former President James Freedman's vision of making Dartmouth hospitable to "creative loners and daring dreamers" and continuing with President James Wright's push for excellence in academics, the administration has consciously shifted its focus away from non-academic institutions, such as a winning football team. This is a policy decision for which recently fired Head Coach John Lyons and Furstenberg have both been unfairly attacked.
A football team is not necessarily "antithetical" to the academic mission of the College, and there is of course something to be said for the importance of football in the college experience. Nobody wants Dartmouth to morph into Swarthmore. But is a mediocre football team such a bad thing if, in exchange, everyone receives the benefits of an improved academic environment?
