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).