December 11, 2002

Dear Board of Trustees:

After a lot of soul searching, I had to reflect on why I was interested or even cared about the plight of Dartmouth’s Swimming and Diving.  I live in California and although I have two prospective college bound kids. Dartmouth’s Swimming and Diving demise would really have no significant impact on our family.  Yes, we are one of those “swim families”, however, we have other interests as well, such as music, journalism, and drama.

We recently have taken the big step to send our first born back east to college.  Rather scary for us but so far the experience has been very positive.  So what do we look for in a college?  Academics is one but not all of it.  We look at how the school generally treats its undergraduates.  Do they value their input?  Are they sensitive to their individual needs?  Do they promote an environment of integrity and trust?  You see for our family to take such a giant step as sending our child away to a private institution, these things are very important.

Over the past two weeks I have been following the news and the web page on Dartmouth Aquatics.  I am saddened by how such a dedicated and spirited group of college students were treated. Although I have no idea if my children will want to swim in college, I would be hard pressed at this time to have them apply to this institution given the administration’s callous actions and poor planning and administration of the college budget. At this time it appears that students have been totally disregarded as your real consumers at this institution. Yes token attempts at counseling have been made but it appears it is only to save the administration’s face as opposed to being of any value to the students. What is really needed at this time is action, real action that demonstrates that you really care about the students at Dartmouth.

Saddened Mom of Three Children,

Gerry Hastrup