I was a swimmer, class of 56.

 

I sent the following email to the Dartmouth

with copies to Pres. Wright, Dean Larimore and AD Harper:

 

As a Varsity swimmer from a different era, I was glad to see that some of

today's students cared enough to protest the strange decision to cut both

men's and women's swimming and diving from a program with a long tradition of

competing in these sports. Fifty-three student athletes are affected and,

Dartmouth has clearly diminished herself by making this decision. Why were

some of us who would support the program not even contacted prior to the

release of the decision? Why does saving some $200,000 loom so large? If, as

the letter I received stated, this is due to an unexpectedly large downtown

in the College's investments, why can we not look forward to a brighter

future when those investments will have risen again? Are we seriously

expected to believe that budgets for other student extracurricular activities

are totally separate from the budgets for intercollegiate athletics? It is

only one's value system that prohibits these funds from being managed in any

way the Administration of the College wants them to be. I do not want to see

the other sports programs cut across the board, either, to save swimming, nor

do I want swimming to become a club sport. I want to see Dartmouth

competitive with all of the Ivies in all fields of endeavor. That is what our

commitment should be and that is what the entire College community, Students,

Alumni, Faculty and Administration need to be about. Short of that we do not

belong in the listing of the best that America has to offer that we always

have been and should never stop striving for.

 

Emerson Houck '56