[Semi-OT] Dartmouth Cuts Swimming and Diving to save $200k

[www.yaledailynews.com]

And if you want to help them out:

[cgi.ebay.com]

No bidders yet.

"But Dartmouth Deputy Director of Athletics Bob Ceplikas said Dartmouth is not the only top school suffering financially. He cited Duke and Stanford as examples, but said he could not speculate on the nature of their or other schools' difficulties."

Yeah, gee. Having a $2.4B endowment turn into a $2.3B endowment sure is hurting financially. Man, I don't know how any college could afford a $200,000 swimming program with such a pitifully small endowment.

Several years ago, didn't Cornell Athletics remove funding to the baseball and lightweight crew teams? Those teams are still competing due to alumni donations and endowments.

I can't find any record of this, so it's quite possible I'm completely wrong. But I did find the following quote from this document:
[www.athletics.cornell.edu]
[Q]"Of Cornell's 36 intercollegiate teams, 10 are self-funded from subscriptions, gifts, and endowment. (6) These are men's sprint football, baseball, tennis, golf, and lightweight crew; women's equestrian; and men's and women's polo and squash. In 1997-98, there were 60 women and 168 men playing on these teams."[/Q]
So it looks like Cornell has a good history of fielding self-funded teams that compete at the intercolligiate level. And without resorting to eBay.

Also, there is a story on the baseball team's endowment here:
[cornellbigred.ocsn.com]

Makes me think that if "listening to online hockey broadcasts" was a sport, and Cornell decided to let alumni donations pay for and support that....oh, nevermind.

Wouldn't it make more sense for them to solicit donations from many poeple than to ask for one $211K contribution in an e-Bay auction?

Yeah, since the auction has probably been viewed my more of us than anyone else as well....

-J

The first bid has apparently been entered by a gentleman who goes by the name "Randy the Pimp."

National news now.

[espn.go.com]

Hey Rich, I see what you're saying, but according to the Globe article, the reason they had to cut the teams was because, in order to remain competitive, they would have had to build a $25 million dollar swimming pool. That would take a whopping amount of alumni interest and donations if the university couldn't fund it. Other than that, I think the equipment is pretty low-maintenance: swimsuits, goggles, and hair caps. I think they are saving 200K by cutting it, but keeping it apparently would have cost them 250000000. Whatever, still lame.

Well, I hadn't read the article in the Globe. For the rest of us, it's here: [www.boston.com]

The bit about the $25M seems to be a minor comment to the press by the administration in order to justify cutting the program (to answer the question: "why swimming?", and isn't the real reason. It seems the cut was made in direct response in Dartmouth president James Wright's instruction to trim the budget by $260,000. The $25M in new facilities doesn't sound necessary, judging by the response from the entire Dartmouth community. The description of the Karl Michael Pool sounds like it is an adequate facility (Built in 1962, 8 lanes, 1200 spectator capacity). In fact, it is larger and newer than the facilities we have at Teagle Hall (Built in 1954, 6 lanes, 950 spectator capacity). So I take it as a load of bunk. In fact, the Globe article is the only mention of the facilities in any of the articles, including the official Dartmouth release.

It sounds like the Dartmouth community, students, and parents/alumni are well on their way to seeking how to become self-funded, which was my original point.

Relevant links:
Dartmouth facilities: [www.dartmouth.edu]
Cornell facilities: [cornellbigred.ocsn.com]
DC swimming page: [www.dartmouth.edu]
Independant support page: [www.b-k-ind.com]

Maybe we can thank CornellPass revenues for keeping Cornell swimming afloat.

I was trying to get the point across that it was a lame excuse, and I didn't think it was the real reason. It is clear that they have to come up with something that sounds good because they know they are going to have dissidents.