Archived Edition: April 25, 2007 | Back to Current	Sep 10, 2010

Students, faculty debate club sports funding
Natalie Friedman - Staff Writer

On Monday night, debating about team sports became a team sport when faculty-student pairs faced off in a spirited debate about the issue of club sports funding. The debate focused on why a wealthy institution like the College will not do more to fund club sports.

“I’m interested in the existence of informed and substantive discussion on campus issues,” said Jeff Kaplan ’09, regarding the first annual faculty-student debate held in Chapin Hall.

The debate, organized by co-presidents Kaplan and Peter Nurnberg ’09 of the newly revived Adelphic Union, addressed complaints about the administration’s financial support for club sports. The debaters were assigned positions in this “intellectual and academic debate,” as described by Kaplan.

Each debater was carefully chosen. Each prospective student debater was interviewed; professors and administrators were handpicked. On the side of the debate arguing against increased club sports funding, the team consisted of Alex Creighton ’10, head of the Debate Team, and Nancy Roseman, Dean of the College. Jose Pacas ’07, club sport athlete, and Joseph Cruz ’91, professor of philosophy and women’s club cycling coach, argued for increased club sports funding.

Before the intense debating began, William Lenhart, provost, gave a brief introduction on the College’s financial budgeting process. “The provost lends a set of assumptions that we can start with,” Kaplan said.

Lenhart broke down the essential sources of college funding into three categories: student tuitions, miscellaneous income from gifts, and grants and money available from the endowment. While Lenhart admitted that Williams does have the capacity to fund major projects, clubs and activities, he said, “The problem is we have so many good ideas, and we can’t afford to do all of them.”

Creighton opened up the debate with his seven-minute affirmative remarks where he argued that by increasing funding for club sports, the administration would presumably be cutting money from another worthy cause. Creighton stressed the importance of having a variety of student-initiated activities on campus and insisted that giving more money to club sports would only cause a snowball affect.

“What would happen if the administration gave more money to club sports – what would that say to other student organizations on campus?” Creighton asked. His debate partner, Roseman, added during her remarks that there are over 200 student groups on campus, all with growing financial needs, and “unfortunately, we do not have an ever expanding universe of financial support,” she said.

Meanwhile the negative side demanded that club sports funding be increased because of the financial burden placed on so many team members. “These teams represent and compete for Williams with as much pride and vigor as any team on campus,” Pacas said, adding later that despite the contributions of these athletes, the students end up paying for the $53,000 shortfall between the cost of the club sports and the net allocations that College Council provides.

Cruz presented a different perspective, highlighting the important values gained from participating in club sports, such as teamwork, collaboration and motivation. The point of club sports, according to Cruz, is to “afford students with opportunities to cultivate themselves as full people.” Thus, increased funding should be a priority for the administration.

Cross-examinations served a key component to this debate. As a means of sparking discussion around issues of funding, Nurnberg emphasized the importance of using the debates as a way to open communication between the administration and students.