James M. Bayles
Newtown, CT  05470
 
   
Dear Dr. Wright:
 
I am deeply saddened and shocked by the news that my Alma Mater has decided to eliminate Men’s and Women’s Varsity Swimming.  Clearly this is not a Title IX Issue as the College is eliminating both programs.  It is hard to believe that Dartmouth is eliminating one of the oldest athletic programs in the school history!
 
While having problems in the last few years, the program has a storied past with many of its participants, me included, having gone to the NCAAs to compete with the best swimmers in the country.
 
When I look back at my time on the Hanover Plain I remember so many experiences, but none more poignant than my time in Alumni Gymnasium and the Karl B. Michael Pool.  I spent many hours perfecting my stroke and improving my times so I could compete at the national level.  I did this while also competing in one of the most rigorous academic environments in the country.
 
I was on the last freshman swimming team.  While an undermanned team when compared to its Ivy rival, it defeated the highly favored Yale Freshman team.  It was only the second time in Freshman Swimming history that it defeated its southern New England rival.  I was also on the first varsity swimming team to defeat Yale, also quite an accomplishment.  Twice we were second in the Ivy League / EISL.  Since that time only three new pools were built in our league: Princeton, Harvard and Columbia.  However, none of them offer what we offer: the ability of the same swimming coach to oversee swimmers practicing at both the 50 meter and 25 yard length from the same deck at the same time.
 
As I mentioned above, one of my fondest memories was the defeat of Yale for the first time over a snowy Winter Carnival weekend.  The next year I asked one of my favorite professors, Prof. Jere Daniel to come to the Princeton swimming meet.  As a huge basketball supporter, he rarely entered the Karl B. Michael Pool.  He said it was one of the best athletic events he had ever witnessed.
 
Many of my college friends were on the swimming team.  That was and is logical because we all spent so much time training and traveling together.  However, I would not have known any of them without the Dartmouth Swimming Team.  While I was a “legacy” at Dartmouth, which may mean less today than it ever has, I would not have chosen Dartmouth if there had not been a swimming program.  I doubt if any of the varsity swimmers would have chosen Dartmouth without the program.
 
Dartmouth is a small college with only 4,000 in undergraduate enrollment.  It is even smaller when looked at from a male only or female only point of view.  From that standpoint, it is smaller than all of its Ivy League counterparts.  Finding and accepting student athletes that are strong both academically and in their chosen extracurricular endeavor is a difficult but not impossible task.  I spent an enormous amount of time in pursuit of my athletic career.  I also excelled in and enjoyed my chosen academic career.  Except for a “C” in my middle and far eastern history course, I received honors grades in all of my other history courses.  I was also in the Green Key Honor Society.  I was more than just a student or just an athlete: I was a well-rounded member of the Dartmouth community
 
Traditionally swimmers have some of the highest grade points of any group on campus.  Many in the team on which I swam went on to pursue careers in medicine and other difficult academic endeavors.  Swimmers add to the diversity of the school precisely because they are more than just good students.  These students offer more than just a high level of academic competence.  Similar to the student-musician, student-actor or student-artist, diversity of the student body beyond academic pursuits is vital to the continued excellence of the College.  There are currently 53 swimmers on the men’s and women’s team.  These 53 students chose Dartmouth in large part because of its swimming program.  While the college will be able to find others to take their place, the diversity of the College will be perceptively diminished.
 
It seems hard to believe that a deficit of $212,000 has to be made up on the backs of a swimmers.  It not affects the 53 currently at Dartmouth but also the proud alumni (ae) that participated in the past.  When the next recession hits, what program will be next?  Since it is obvious that there is a bias against the student-athlete, perhaps it is time to consider eliminating all varsity athletics and go the route of New York University or the University of Chicago.  Why have student-athletes at all?  In fact, why have any extracurricular activities beyond the pure pursuit of academics.  This will mean that the school can dedicate itself to the pursuit of academics with all outside activities reduced to what one can do in and the college classroom and such ancillary buildings as libraries and data centers.  Part of our western culture and heritage states that leisure time is as vital to our health as work.  Is God truly happiest when her children are at play?  If we start to single out athletes, perhaps all other extracurricular activities should be eliminated or reduced to the “club” level.
 
Please follow the logic: When we eliminate Dartmouth Football, we eliminate the need for the Dartmouth Marching Band.  Think of the double benefit it will be for the college budget.  Without a band, the music program will not be as broad.  As it is an extracurricular activity, we could then eliminate the music program in its entirety.  If we do not have musicians, we can eliminate music rooms and music professors.  Then Dartmouth will only be able to produce and perform plays that are non-musicals.  The School could then decide to eliminate the performance of all plays and therefore eliminate student-actors from the student body as well.  With no need or ability to put on plays, there will be less wear and tear on Hopkins Center.  Further, the College will have room in each class for more single-interest students.  With less wear and tear on Hopkins Center, the college can put even more resources into the academic programs.  
 
Further, if we eliminate another cherished, old and well-established student institution, the Dartmouth Outing Club, we can drop the need to oversee and maintain the Second Dartmouth Land Grant.  We can sell the Land Grant to add to the cash endowment of the College.  Because we no longer have an outing club, we can eliminate the freshman trips and Mount Moosilauke Ravine Lodge.  While the “Land Grant” does bring in money to the School, it is a headache because it is so far away from the campus and it takes overhead in the form of specialized administrators.  Further, since we can sell the land grant the College can improve the endowment, because a financial instrument can replace this underutilized fixed asset.  As the school eliminates extracurricular activities the freed up financial resources can re-outfit the former non-academic areas of the school such as Alumni Gym, Hopkins Center and other parts of the campus for use in academic activities only.  
 
Eliminating the Land Grant and the DOC may hinder the ecology courses taught at Dartmouth, but I am sure the School could rent publicly held land, on an as-needed basis to do research.  This is a much cheaper solution than owning land so far away from the college.  With the elimination of all athletics, we can eliminate the Dartmouth Skiway.  With fewer “athletes” on campus there will be less need to have recreational areas such as this.  Again, we can sell the Skiway, put the money into the cash endowment and therefore improve the overall performance of the college’s financial resources.  We can continue to replace land assets used for recreation for financial assets.  Chase field, so far away from the main campus is another land asset that would be freed up under this approach.
 
The logic of reducing athletics because of a dip in the economy can lead to a clear realignment of the entire Dartmouth experience for future generations.  In all of Dartmouth’s publications on the subject of elimination of the Varsity Swimming Teams, it was stressed at how diverse the remaining athletic program is.  I am sure that the same statement was used when the College eliminated gymnastics and other minor sports while I attended the college.  Slowly, athletics at my Alma Mater is being dismantled.  The College continues down a slippery slope that could endanger all extracurricular activities.
 
Swimming as a varsity sport is one of the oldest on campus.  It has had national and world-class athletes drawn to the school.  If this program’s future is so insecure as to be eliminated with a College endowment of over $3.0 Billion, then what program is safe?  If the school’s bias is anti-athletics, then no athletic program is safe.  If athletics as an extracurricular activity is not safe, then none of the other extracurricular activities are safe.  
 
Dartmouth is built on traditions, most good and some not so good.  It struggled to move from an all-male school to one that embraced co-education.  Through that struggle, if found itself and became a much stronger and better institution.  It struggled with its past as a missionary school for Native Americans.  Here again, the school became stronger because of the experience in the education of the Native American.  Dartmouth continues to find a new way in a world that was once dominated by the WASPS of my father’s generation.
 
It is a school that always looks to the future with great anticipation.  It sought to diversify the student body by accepting students and faculty first from all states and then from all races, cultures, creeds and nations.  The school has received great accolades as a premier institution of higher learning by being a diverse school supporting many activities, both academic and non-academic.  Now it is looking to eliminate a program with 80 years of history. 
 
To remain a preeminent school, Dartmouth must be diverse.  Diversity must not only be in the classroom but also in the student body.  It could not remain a preeminent academic institution by staying all male.  It will not remain a preeminent academic institution if some of its cherished outside activities, including athletics are constantly under attack and forced to be eliminated or severely hampered in order to save money in a recession.
 
I loved the Dartmouth of my uncle, James M Bayles, class of 1934, my father, Rogers Bayles, class of 1936, of my brother, Richard L. Bayles, class of 1966.  I loved the college of my academic years, class of 1974 and I love the Dartmouth as it continued to evolve these last 28 years.  However, I no longer love the College of November 25, 2002.  I will continue to support the institution I love to the tune of $1.00 per year unless the policy of continued reduction in extracurricular activities in the manifest form of eliminating Dartmouth Varsity Swimming for both Men and Women remains in effect.
 
Sincerely yours,
 
 
James M. Bayles
Class of 1974