To the Editor:
In his recent column ("Through the Looking Glass: Transcending the Hyphen," April 13), Garrett Wymore '13 cites a number of conflicts to support a central thesis that the culture of athletics, and specifically football, is in conflict with the mission of Dartmouth and the liberal arts. I find this idea not only false, but also inverted from the historical and continuing realities that have united the goals of athletics with the educational missions of American liberal arts colleges including our College.
One particularly relevant sentence from the Dartmouth mission statement reads, "Dartmouth graduates are marked by an understanding of the importance of teamwork, a capacity for leadership and their keen enjoyment of a vibrant community." Athletics provide one of many effective ways to develop the tenets that the Dartmouth community holds dear. Participating in the mission of Dartmouth through overcoming physical and mental hardships is additive to the liberal arts experience and counter to Wymore's comparison of athletic training and the degrading goals of hazing.
In 2000, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Karl Furstenberg wrote a widely criticized letter commending the elimination of Swarthmore College's football program, saying, "football, and the culture that surrounds it, is antithetical to the academic mission of colleges such as ours." It is important that we reject the similar sentiment in Wymore's article. Athletics are not a side-event or a relic of the College incompatible with being a philosophizing engineer or a physicist poet; they are one of the vibrant mediums through which the mission of Dartmouth is gained. We must work to perfect the athletic culture in its crucial aid to the mission of the College. Dartmouth is indeed the only place where you can high-five the president of the World Bank after a touchdown let's keep it that way!
