Thursday, December 14, 2000

Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.

The Daily Gazette

Thursday, December 14, 2000
Online Edition

Professor Caskey responds to allegations of flaws in ARC process

Joe, Mathew, Delonte, and Lucy,

I think that reasonable people can disagree about the wisdom of the ARC’s majority recommendation and the Board’s decision to support it. You make some good points to support the view that the College should place greater weight on athletic talent in its admissions decisions than the majority on the ARC felt comfortable with. In criticizing the process, however, you make some errors.

1. After the meeting of Nov 14, Hans Oberdiek and I wrote a paper that filled out the details of what we thought the majority had supported at the Nov 14 meeting. Mark Dingfield was NOT a co-author of that paper.

2. The one and only difference between what was in our paper and what was voted Nov 14 was that Hans and I did not advocate dropping swimming.

3. At the meeting of Nov 28, the majority of the committee agreed that swimming should not be dropped. It agreed to the 10-15 percent limit. It agreed to recommend the elimination of two sports and no additional support for badminton.

4. I am one of the people who missed the Nov 28 meeting. I fully supported the majority consensus of that meeting and I let people know that.

5. It now appears that one of more of the students at the Nov 28 meeting, who other people attending the meeting thought supported the majority position, say that they did not. Fine. This does not change the fact that there was a majority recommendation.

6. The ARC committee did include alumni among its membership.

-John Caskey

 

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