The Dartmouth athletic department’s abrupt announcement last week that it would eliminate its swimming and diving teams at the end of this season has shocked the Dartmouth campus and college athletics nationwide.

Last Tuesday, the department announced that it was eliminating the teams as part of college-wide budget cuts.

“It opens the door to other programs being cut,” said Harvard men’s co-captain Cory Walker.

The cuts will save $212,000 annually, a necessity after a 5.7 percent drop in the school’s endowment last year, according to a Dartmouth press release.

On the Dartmouth campus, the initial response included a late-night rally in front of the residences of Dartmouth College President James Wright and Dean of the College James Larimore.

In the week following, the decision has spawned a website, threats of legal action and most recently the creation of an online auction which hopes to find a donor willing to contribute the funds necessary to keep the program afloat.

Suffering most acutely from the budget cuts are the 53 team members, three full-time coaches and one part-time coach—who were notified of the cuts an hour before the news was released to the public.

The coaches will be paid through the end of the year and will receive severance pay, according to The Dartmouth, the campus newspaper.

But students will receive no equivalent compensation. Some students told The Dartmouth that they were considering transferring to another school in order to continue competing at the Division I level. The decision will also affect prospective students applying for admission in 2003.

Harvard swimmers said this decision would have affected their own college admissions process.

“I know what they’re going through,” said Molly G. Brethauer ’05, recalling how much her own college decision was affected by the presence and strength of Harvard’s swimming program.

Brethauer also said that, for a varsity athlete, the loss of an athletic program is equivalent to eliminating an academic department.

According to the press release, Dartmouth’s administration felt eliminating an entire program was its only feasible option, since previous attempts to evenly distribute reductions throughout the athletic department had not been effective.

In addition, the swimming facility requires more than $20 million in renovations to bring it to the level of other Division I schools.

Neither the men’s nor the women’s swimming teams at Dartmouth have ever captured an Ivy Championship. In fact, the men have never won a single meet in the Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League since its founding in 1962.