Although none of Dartmouth's 34 varsity programs will be eliminated as a result of the budget crisis, the athletic department and sports teams will see substantial budget cuts as well as other measures taken to reduce costs, interim athletic director Bob Ceplikas said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
The College currently funds roughly half of the athletic department's $17 million in expenses, Ceplikas said. Twenty years ago, however, Dartmotuh supported two-thirds of the athletic budget. Ceplikas said he expects financial support from the College to further decrease in the coming year as more details of the cuts are announced.
The athletic department is responsible for making up the other half of the budget. It raises $2 million from team endowments and another $2 million from Friends organizations groups that donate money annually to the athletic department to help pay for various teams.
The rest of the budget is bridged through alumni donations, ticket sales and other means of raising funds.
Ceplikas said he does not believe that the athletic department can make enough money to cover the funding shortfall without making cuts to decrease the budget, he said. As far as the extent of the shortfall, Ceplikas said that he will not know exact numbers until April.
College President Jim Yong Kim announced last Monday that despite deciding not to eliminate any of its teams, the College will be looking for more inventive ways to fund its athletic programs. He also noted that Dartmouth has more varsity teams per capita than any of its peers.
"It's a difficult thing to support all these teams, but we are not making any major cuts to teams," he said. "We are just working very hard to try to find creative ways of supporting them."
Creative solutions could include increasing alumni donations, Ceplikas said, because there is greater potential in alumni-funded endowments than in donations from local businesses.
"The development office is looking into further donations from the alumni," he said. "We believe there is potential there and not from businesses."
Ceplikas and Kim are also considering greater use of the Friends programs. More money from the Friends programs would help alleviate budget concerns, Kim said, specifically citing the success of the Friends of Dartmouth Football group and its increased participation in the last year alone.
Ceplikas said he is encouraging teams to establish or increase the amount of permanent endowments that can bolster individual team budgets. Most Dartmouth teams have an endowment fund to varying degrees, according to Ceplikas, but the athletic department is hoping to increase these endowments so they will produce greater yields.
If more money was generated from team endowment funds, the athletic department would then be able to better support other programs, he said. In addition, teams would be insulated from future budget deliberations.
In 2002, the men's and women's swim teams were cut from varsity athletics to help alleviate a $2 million budget deficit.
After over 45 days of fundraising which included the swim teams being put up for sale on eBay the teams were able to raise the $2.35 million necessary to set up its endowment, the Glover Fund.
"Team endowments make the team less dependent on the College," he said. "As a result, that sport is more protected in times like these."
The Glover Fund will support the team for 10-12 years, at which point the swim teams will be funded by the College again, according to men's and women's head coach Jim Wilson.
Wilson said the crisis had a profound effect on the program.
"We lost all of the recruits that year and the year after," he said. "We only have two seniors now on the men's team, so we are still feeling the effects."
Because of The Glover Fund and alumni donations, the team was able to renovate its pool and hire full-time assistants, which they did not have before the crisis.
According to Wilson, the budget stayed roughly the same before and after the crisis, which is a testament to what an endowment can do.
"The feeling from the alumni became, If it could happen to swimming, it could happen to anything,'" he said of the program being cut.
Any new endowments in the athletic department would be permanent and so would differ from the model of The Glover Fund.
Another possible way to increase funding, according to Ceplikas, is to increase endowed coaching positions. These positions are created when a donor gives money to a program and a coaching position is named after him or her.
At the moment, the College has three supported coaching positions the head coach of the football team is supported by the Bob Blackman endowment, while the men's and women's track coaches are supported the Herb and Marjorie Chase endowments.
The athletic department will also be looking at how other colleges and universities fund their athletic programs, Ceplikas said. He noted that Cornell has 20 endowed coaching positions.
Because of its current funding situation, however Dartmouth may be better situated than other larger institutions.
"A place like Ohio State University has a $106 million budget with fewer sports than we have," Ceplikas said. "The problem is, to rely on their type of funding, they have to win."
A university like Ohio State relies heavily on television contracts, merchandise sales and alumni donations, which can diminish if a team begins losing, according to Ceplikas. Dartmouth athletics, he added, are more self-sufficient and less dependent on winning.
The athletic department has already begun to make cuts, as it anticipates next year's College-supported budget of approximately $8.5 million will decrease. Ceplikas said he knows the budget will shrink, but will not know a definitive number until April when the budget is again discussed.
"We are definitely going to have to cut costs," he said. "We know we can't make up [all] lost funding with new funding."
According to Ceplikas, the College is focused on reducing costs with as little impact on the athletic experience as possible. He said the College would most likely make cuts to things like team travel, recruiting and new jerseys.
Staff reductions have also been made, Ceplikas added. Although the athletic department was able to eliminate certain positions through retirement and vacancies, it was also forced to lay off employees on the administrative side. Ceplikas declined to give a specific number regarding layoffs because of the sensitive nature of the matter. He added that the layoffs are included in the figures released by Kim last Monday.
"There will be a staffing and budget reduction," Ceplikas said. "We will be working with a leaner staff." He said that the budget situation will not impact the future competitiveness of Dartmouth athletics and future hiring. In fact, the athletic department has already started a national search for a new men's basketball coach.
"We are still committed to trying to hire the same caliber of coaches that we have in the past," he said.
Despite the budgetary hurdles, both Kim and Ceplikas emphatically stated their support for Dartmouth athletics.
"We think that athletics should be part of an overall Dartmouth College strategic plan," Kim said.
Both Kim and Ceplikas were also careful to emphasize that Dartmouth offers a large variety of sports that few of its peers can match. Kim said he believes that only Princeton University has more, boasting 38 varsity sports, compared to Dartmouth's 34.
Ceplikas said he believes Kim's statements regarding not eliminating programs is important for retaining hopeful recruits.
