MIT To Cut Several Athletic Programs

Facing severe financial pressures, MIT administrators announced this week that they would cut some of the school’s varsity athletic programs by the end of April—a move that gives Harvard sole claim to having the most varsity teams of any school in the nation.

The news of the cuts came after MIT announced that its Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation would have to reduce its spending over the next three years by $1.45 million. Its current annual budget is $12.9 million.

MIT athletic officials are currently meeting with student athletes, coaches and interested alumni in order to decide which five to eight teams will be removed from the varsity program. Both Harvard and its neighbor downriver currently have 41 varsity sports teams—tied for most in the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

With its recent announcement, MIT—which already cut junior varsity programs earlier this year—joins the ranks of schools such as John Hopkins, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the University of Vermont, all of which have cut varsity programs in the past three months in response to the financial downturn.

“Since well before the current financial crisis, we have faced hard questions about how to sustain our broad scope of offerings at the level of excellence that participants have come to expect,” Julie Soriero, MIT’s Director of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation said in a statement about the cuts early this week.

MIT’s announcement did not go unnoticed by the school’s student athletes, many of whom have been petitioning to postpone the cuts and to raise awareness of the importance of collegiate athletics.

MIT junior Cathy Melnikow, who chairs the MIT Undergraduate Association’s Committee on Athletics, said it was a “terrible feeling” for students to be left in limbo about the future of sports they had played for their entire lives.

“The last competition you played [may have been] three months ago,” she said.

MIT’s cuts have left some varsity Crimson captains wary that Harvard may have to make sacrifices as well.

“[Varsity cuts] have crossed my mind,” said Harvard ski team captain Anna R. Schulz ’09. “But Harvard really seems to pride itself on its having 41 different sports.”

Some Crimson athletes have already seen what they say are subtle attempts by the athletics department to save.

“I’ve definitely noticed, at least in track, we’ve been doing some budgeting, making sure that we are not getting unnecessary equipment and the like,” said junior cross country captain Kelsey B. LeBuffe ’10. “Some minor constraints, but nothing major.”

Harvard Director of Athletic Communications Kurt Svoboda made it clear in an e-mail that the University did “not anticipate reducing [its] varsity sports programs.”

MIT Undergraduate Association President Noah Jessop said that he did not think the cuts would have much of an effect on the college decisions of current MIT admits.

“I think that MIT is certainly an environment where, for a majority of students, academics are first and foremost,” he said. “Regardless of the cuts, I don’t think it will affect the decisions of the class of 2013.”

But the Crimson’s Schulz and Le Buffe disagreed, saying that they believed the potential for athletic participation was an important part of the college decisions for incoming freshmen.

“I’d probably really reconsider going to that school,” Schulz said. “I know I would not have come to Harvard if they didn’t have a ski team.”