DartLog.net

Wednesday, November 27, 2002
 

2 Things:  1. Here's what disturbs me about the swim team debacle, and it really has nothing to do with the swim team itself:
Why on earth is there rioting and class council blitzs for this one when there wasn't anything for the library announcements? While I like to see students (finally) getting upset over the budget, the priorities are still screwy. I'm with Andrew that the first goal of budget cuts should be to maintain our academic infrastructure at top-notch, even if that involves cutting a team or two. But none of these teams should be axed before the Collis projects and some of the various deans are eliminated (I'd also recommend severely curtailing the amount of money flowing into the UGA program). Academics should be the absolute priority, but no one was upset enough to protest over the libraries, and I never saw the class council weigh in. I suppose the fact that specific library cuts have not been announced could have some effect, but still...

2. This is regarding Rollo's "slippery slope" comment about my editorial. First off, I don't think slippery slope arguments are "stupid." If you truly do Rollo, then you should have no qualms accepting a speech code which restricts only the most vile expressions of speech. You also wouldn't have a problem accepting just a couple more restrictions on gun rights, even if they were very very tiny. Afterall, if there's not a slippery slope, then what is just one more law affecting only a few people's guns, especially if it doesn't affect law-abiding citizens? I write this knowing full well it is bound to start a debate.

But more importantly, I don't think I was outlining a "slippery slope" issue. It is more like a cliff. Either you invest concentrating on the social implications of stocks, or you invest looking to generate the greatest return, unhindered by other thoughts. "Moral" investing is not possible with something like Dartmouth's endowment because it would have to be representative of 4000+ students' views, not just the individual investor. I'm not saying that tobacco divestment is the first step and could be taken further. I'm saying it would be taken further (yes I'm aware of the South Africa divestment; no I don't know all the details or why there weren't immediately calls for other divestment schemes), but even if it weren't, it would still affect the way we invest money. Maybe I'm being obtuse, but this would force our brokers to do research on all the social issues related to any company before investing. For instance, they would be loathe to make some long-term investments if they knew they might have to sell them off before they reached fruition because someone might cry foul. They would have to take the tobacco divestment into account as an example of what can happen with the slightest bit of controversy on our fair campus. There is no doubt in my mind that keeping an eye towards these things would handicap their ability to invest wisely and quickly (clearly, the last couple years were not the best examples of investing, but a 45% return for one year ain't too shabby). It would also divert tremendous research manpower.

There are a few more reasons why divesting is a bad idea. First, before any scheme is considered, the College would have to make all its stock ownings public, which they have been loathe to do. Next, the issue of who decides which stocks are bad ones is very unsettling. What if it were a representative from each student group? Elections would be just as bad. But this decision would come back to the Board eventually, and I prefer they don't spend their meetings squabbling over whether or not business involvement in China is grounds for dismissal. Given how many stocks we are bound to own, this alone would takes weeks or months to sift through, and I sincerely hope the trustees have better things to do. I had a couple others I think, but I'm tired now. Happy Thanksgiving all.
--posted by Alston Ramsay 3:15 AM

Tuesday, November 26, 2002

Saving money?:  Troy Blanchard '05 writes in:

I think readers and other students should begin a movement to call for the removal of the Dean of Plurality. Maybe a blitz petition or something in writing, but either way something has to be done. With the anger of the student body and alumni at fever pitch over the swim team (and the alcohol policy, indirectly related to the budget crisis), this would be the perfect time to get this rolling.

Good point: they are related. Everything's related - it's all about money being misspent. And the Dean of Pluralism is about as big of a waste as you'll find.
--posted by Andrew Grossman 7:52 PM

Re: Swimming Cut:  Grossman, I disagree with you here. Naturally, as an academic institution, the absolute last items to face the axe should be those directly bearing on the College's educational mission -- library, faculty, etc. Everything else is fat: we should be willing to cut it if necessary, and thankful for it when we have it. We are all in agreement with this.

However, the story here is not whether or not swimming and diving should be cut. All things being equal, that's a debatable point, depending on your preferred method of resource allocation. The story is that swimming and diving were cut, while ridiculous expenses (like the Office of the Dean of Plurality, the Women's Resource Center, and just about everything done in Collis) were not. That's the outrage -- not what was cut, but what they were thinking when they did the cutting. It is fully deserving of your condemnation.

This is about opportunity costs. Whatever you think of swimming and diving, you have to acknowledge that they have a better claim to College funds than the politically motivated boondoggles they chose to keep. Yes, the administration's values are on display here, and more and more we're looking like Swarthmore or Bryn Mawr.
--posted by Emmett Hogan 

Re: Shut up:  Ben, while I do agree that swimming is a less attractive target than near anything taking place in the Collis Center, it is by far the most deserved victim of budget cuts announced so far. That the team has been around for more than seventy years shouldn't give it funding priority over, say, the library or nearly any academic programs. Obviously, no student or alumnus will agree completely with all of the administration's chosen cuts, but at least let's applaud them for looking in the right direction, towards programs that are not essential to the school's academic mission.

Reviewers should remember that while we've often been quick to criticize the College (and almost always rightly so), we should hold off when the administration makes sensible choices and decisions. No matter what is cut, that program's beneficiaries will be upset; it will always be easy to find students and alumni dissatisfied with this or that cut. Instead of the just echoing the inevitable complaints, the Review should praise those decisions that fit our values, no matter how unpleasant those decisions may be (because, unless the College decides to go for the women's studies department, every cut will be unpleasant).
--posted by Andrew Grossman 

Just a Thought:  Has anyone thought about organizing a petition of alums saying they won't donate to the College unless it gets its priorities straight?
--posted by Emmett Hogan 

Re: Shut up:  I must respectfully disagree with Andrew, the swim team has been around for 70+ years. Intercollegiate athletics are an integral part of the college's history, tradition, and a much more deservedly funded program than 90% of the crap that goes on at Collis. No one is going to confuse Dartmouth for Notre Dame or Stanford when it comes to sports, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't offer them at all. Afterall, isn't a 50 yard swim test still a requirement to graduate?

Swimming and diving may not draw the crowds of football or hockey, but they deserve their team as much as the sailors or the riders on the equestrian team.

If they want to add money to the athletic budget, raise prices of hockey, basketball, and football tickets by $1. The hockey team's been averaging 3500 fans a game - say 3000 of which aren't students. 3000 x 15 home games = $45000. You'd likely get the same amount of money from football, and maybe half-3/4ths of that from basketball. There's at least half of the needed money from one easy step. I'm sure it couldn't be that hard to come up with another $90k.

The only thing I will agree on is that it does make sense to cut one program as opposed to making budget cuts across the board affecting every team. But it doesn't make sense to have to cut any of them in what has been a rediculously minor economic downturn. How the hell did the swim team survive the 1970's if it can't survive this?
--posted by Ben Flickinger 

Swimming in the D:  There's an article about the swimming team controversy in today's D. It's exactly what you'd expect, until you get to the last paragraph:

"The Undergraduate Financial Committee decided to postpone disclosing its budget, which it had planned to release today. Though the UFC is completely separate from the Dean of the College and the athletic department, a source close to the UFC told The Dartmouth that the UFC had postponed their announcement so as not to cause student outcry over funds received by other less popular campus organizations while the swim team is being eliminated."

So, to clarify, according to the D's source, the College knows damn well that it is funding programs that students don't like, while cutting spending on programs that students do like. All I have to say to the UFC is this: you can't withhold it forever. Your donors have a right to know how well their donations are being managed.

Also in the D is an op-ed by some kid named Alston. I'm not actually sure I agree with his reasoning. Slippery slope arguments tend to strike me as sort of stupid. I do, however, agree with his conclusion: that Dartmouth should not divest from tobacco companies. My logic is this: how can we in good conscience announce that we think that the production of cigarettes is wrong without ever announcing that we think the use of cigarettes is wrong? Surely, there's an inherent flaw in telling people that it's okay if they smoke, but if anyone helps them smoke they're in for it. Until Dartmouth has an anti-smoking policy, I don't think it's in any position to have an anti-smoking-enabling policy.
--posted by G. Rollo Begley 8:07 AM

Shut up:  A mob chanting "Student voice!" just wound its way past the Tabard on its way to the Choates (I don't know why either). Apparently, this was the swim team, irate over something or other, like the school cancelling their program.

I say, screw swimming, It's a great way to cut the budget down without abandoning the school's academic priority. Swimmers: you're here to learn, right? Get your ear infections on your own time and without wasting everyone else's money, OK?
--posted by Andrew Grossman 

Monday, November 25, 2002

Class Councils getting on it:  --- Forwarded message from 04-Class-Council ---

--- Forwarded message from 03-Class-Council ---

>Date: 25 Nov 2002 21:07:57 EST
>From: 03-Class-Council
>Reply-To: bestclassever
>Subject: Support the Swim Team
>To: (Recipient list suppressed)

As you may have already heard, due to budget cuts the Athletic Dept is going to cut the swimming and diving teams.

Show you care!
Help their voice be heard.
Come show your support for your classmates.
101 Collis
11:30 PM *tonight*

--posted by alex talcott 9:50 PM

More Factoids...:  In 2002, James Wilson was named an Academic All American with Mike Tanana, Emily Barsky, Danielle Fritze, and Katie Crawford being named All Americans.
--posted by Christian Hummel 5:57 PM

Swim Team Factoid:  We will now be the only Ivy League school without a Swimming and Diving team. Hurray for us.
--posted by Ben Flickinger 5:43 PM

In the immortal words...:  ...of President Wright:

"Students don't rebel against adult guidance in the way they did 30 years ago," said James Wright, Dartmouth's president.

New York Times, 3 March 1999. (Available on Lexis-Nexis)


--posted by Christian Hummel 

Dumb question::  Re: Lengthy blitz #2... What do the authors think will be accomplished through solidarity with the swimming/diving programs and/or a community hour with the provost? I'm not suggesting that we don't support the swimming/diving athletes, but isn't it time for the students to move beyond inane sentiments into real constructive action? Personally, I would love to occupy an office or two a la 1968...

Who says all student demonstrations have to be led by lefties?
--posted by Christian Hummel 

Re: swim team:  While Dartmouth isn't the first school to cut a swim team nor will it be the last, it is troubling nonetheless. It's one thing when a school like Nebraska cuts men's Swimming and Diving because of budget troubles (Nebraska's athletic department is self-sufficient, funded mainly through football money while receiving no taxpayer money or general university funds) and Title IX issues (they kept the women's team), it is another entirely when a school like Dartmouth, with an athletic department which is funded by the school and doesn't depend on ticket revenue to support its teams, must cut its swim team anyway.

Swimming and diving, while not high profile sports, are at least well-known Olympics sports which the USA used to dominate. As the number of NCAA swim teams diminish, though, that will change, as we saw in Sydney when Australia started to challenge the US for supremacy in the water.

Frankly, I must question why swimming and diving get cut but not the obviously more cost-intensive and yet more obscure sports of sailing or equestrian. Or why an athletic department that can squeeze 34 varsity sports out of a budget of $10.8M is being forced to cut sports at all. That is a bargain price, and provides much better use of student and endowment funds than any Collis event or a Dean of Plurality. For comparison, consider again a place like Nebraska, which offers 19 sports with an athletic budget of around $55M. Granted that includes scholarship costs which Dartmouth does not have, but the point is the same. It would seem like they could dig up the $250k necessary to save the team if they really wanted to.
--posted by Ben Flickinger 

Say the Ryans:  Gorsche: Not only did they cut the swim team, but now Larimore's trying to keep me from getting piss drunk before attending meets.It's not like I'm that chick from Swimfan, but does anybody else find it ridiculous we have a Dean of Plurality and no intercollegiate varsity swim team? Really I don't care...As long as they don't touch the National Ammo Day party funds, but I fear they're next. Damn this school!

Samuels: I think that more and more folks are beginning to find it ridiculous. Here is a rather sensible piece in the Daily D from some right thinking 05s: http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=200211250201.
--posted by alex talcott 

Also:  With all of the swimming team stuff and the alcohol policy stuff, I feel like people have sort of forgotten that:
1. SOMEBODY SHOT INTO THE WINDOWS OF A DARTMOUTH BUILDING from a distance at which they may not have known if there was anyone inside.
2. Nobody bothered making this info generally available. Apparently snipers shooting at the campus don't merit "crime alerts."

The only thing that's worth double-checking (I'm looking at you Roisin, as I don't actually subscribe to the Connecticut Valley Spectator) is that those dates were from this year, since we all know what the courts are like, although I would have thought the article would have made it more obvious if it were old news.

UPDATE: yeah, it was this year.
--posted by G. Rollo Begley 

Things not going swimmingly:  I won't be done with swim team rants for some time.
I've been told that team members only learned of the decision today.
My public high school didn't even have a pool, and we still had a swim team.
The swim team is an institution, an obvious organization. What's next to go?--Mid-Mass? The English Department?

--posted by alex talcott 

Important lengthy blitz #2:  Dear Dartmouth Students,

This morning we were all stunned to find out that the Athletic Department has made the decision to cut the Dartmouth Swimming and Diving Teams as varsity programs. The Budget Committee has also approved these recommendations, so this news is official. While the Student Assembly was under the impression that most of the budget cut proposals would be released this December or January, this decision has been released at this time because of its implications for early decision students, particularly prospective swimmers and divers.

Student Body Vice President Juila Hildreth and I met with Dean of College Jim Larimore this morning to discuss the details of this decision. First, we would like to point students to the following link, which hopefully will clarify some of your questions: http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7enews/releases/nov02/swimming.shtml

Among other things, Dean Larimore conveyed to us the reality that any cuts in the Athletic Department would be more visible to the campus than cuts in other departments. In addition, we discussed the viability of maintaining a competitive swimming/diving program despite its lack of a varsity status.

Clearly no one on campus wanted this to happen, and we should all stand in solidarity with the swimming and diving teams. We should especially support them during this Winter season, and make their home meets truly memorable.

While this decision appears to be final, students' voices can still be heard, especially with regard to the future status of the swimming and diving programs.

On Tuesday, December 3rd, the SA has scheduled a Community hour in Collis
Commonground from 12pm-1pm with the Provost Barry Scherr, who oversees the budget committee. We had already arranged this date to discuss potential budget cuts, but now the discussion will feel far more relevant to many students. In addition, the Student Assembly has convened a task force to collect student feedback throughout the budget cut process. The Administration has agreed to work with this group to ensure student voice in evaluating further budget cut decisions.

Thank you, and please blitz me, Julia, or the Student Assembly account if you would like to discuss this further.

Janos Marton, Student Body President
Julia Hildreth, Student Body Vice President

--posted by alex talcott 

Important lengthy blitz #1:  Date: November 25, 2002
To: Dartmouth Students
From: Jim Larimore, Dean of the College
Re: Revised Alcohol Policy

In early October, I sent you an email to provide you with a status report on revisions to the Collegeís alcohol policy that were recommended last spring by a Working Group comprised of students, faculty and staff. The Working Group paid particular attention to questions surrounding the language in our alcohol policy, social event registration, server training guidelines, and the ìGood Samaritanî policy. Student input on the proposed revisions was extensive and thoughtful, and many of you offered helpful suggestions for ways to improve the campus social environment.

Campus discussions made clear that our alcohol policy needed to place greater emphasis on health, safety, individual, and group responsibility, and to provide clear information regarding when and where registered social events could take place when they included the service of alcohol. I have accepted the main recommendations of the Working Group. Beginning January 5, 2003, we will implement a revised alcohol policy; a copy of the revised policy will be available at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~deancoll/alcrec/ on or before the beginning of the term.

The revised alcohol policy better reflects the social climate that we strive to maintain regarding the appropriate role and use of alcohol by members of the community. The policy balances desirable freedoms with essential responsibilities, such as respect for self and others. The success of the policy will require the cooperative effort of students, administrators, faculty and alumni. Specific changes in the policy include:
ï More clarity about where social events involving the service/provision of alcohol to students of legal drinking age can take place.
ï The ìTier Systemî for registering parties has been replaced by a simpler system (registration is encouraged, but optional if attendance is 10 or fewer in a residence hall common area; 40 or the number of organization members, whichever is fewer, in a Coed, Fraternity, or Sorority physical plant).
ï If alcohol is present at a social event, certified trained student or other servers, or paid professional servers will be required. Training will be optional but encouraged during the 2003 winter term, and required as of the start of the 2003 spring term.
ï The ìGood Samaritanî policy has been reaffirmed and clarified.

The College supports the choice made by some students not to consume alcohol and actively discourages and responds to the irresponsible use of alcohol. We recognize that the majority of students who choose to drink do so in a responsible manner. However, we also recognize that the irresponsible use of alcohol can have negative consequences for the irresponsible drinker as well as for others with whom they come in contact.

Social gatherings at Dartmouth, including those at which alcohol is served, can be an important and enjoyable part of community life. They must also be conducted in a manner that protects the health and well-being of community members and guests, complies with College policy and State laws, and reflects the high value we place on respect for the rights of all individuals. When alcohol is served, it should be an adjunct or enhancement to the event rather than the sole reason for the event. Given the degree of freedoms and responsibilities associated with social life at Dartmouth, it is expected that students will model responsible alcohol use and that the hosts of events will exercise care and good judgment in the planning and management of events.

Student suggestions about the procedures for registering and hosting social events resulted in the adaptation of the Social Events Procedures used by the Greek Leadership Council. These revised procedures will apply to all student organizations and residences interested in hosting an event that involves the service of alcohol. The Social Events Procedures will be available for review by the beginning of winter term on the Safety and Security website.

As recommended by the Working Group, a new training program for event hosts, servers and monitors is being developed. Training will be optional but encouraged during the winter term in order to allow students the opportunity to help refine the training. Training for servers and monitors will be required as of spring term 2003, which will provide student organizations sufficient time to have their members participate in training.

I believe that these improvements to the alcohol policy will strengthen our ability to work together to safeguard the health and well-being of students, and to preserve the ability of students and student organizations to exercise freedom and good judgment in hosting social events where alcohol is served. As suggested by the Working Group, I will review the effectiveness of the revised alcohol policy and social event procedures with students and colleagues during the summer and fall terms of 2003.

Best wishes for an enjoyable winter break.

--posted by alex talcott 

Swim Team:  This is truly an atrocious development. My question is this: the $1.8 million the school is dropping on Phi Tau aside, why not sell some land? It's liquid, we've got tons of it, and much of it is valuable.


"Oh German! I thought there was something wrong with you."
--posted by G. Rollo Begley 

An exchange:  ...between the missus and me.

Kristin: Shit [includes a forwarded blitz about the swim team cut]
Talc: i know. up at dartlog. absolutely awful
K: can they not fucking get rid of fuel??
K: it's not like swimming is some exotic sport
T: mabye if it was the underwater gay sex club they'd still have a team

--posted by alex talcott 

We haven't heard a peep from the D of the conclusion of this saga, even though they plastered the story all over the place last year.

--posted by Jesse Roisin  

Dartmouth to cut Swimming and Diving teams after this season:  Budget Cuts have hit the athletic department:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/athletics/archive/2002/11/0098.html

As part of planned College-wide budget reductions, the Dartmouth Department of Athletics and Recreation has announced the elimination of its varsity menís and womenís swimming and diving programs effective at the conclusion of the current competitive season in March 2003.

The Dartmouth athletic department faces a $260,000 reduction of its $10.8 million annual operating budget. The permanent elimination of the swimming and diving programs will reduce the athletic budget by $212,000 annually beginning in 2003-04. The department had already pared down administrative budgets, increased revenue expectations, and required reductions to intercollegiate, recreation and maintenance budgets the previous year. The athletic department is a part of the Dean of the College area, which has sustained a $1.15 million reduction overall.

--posted by Ben Flickinger