Volume CXXXIII, Number 13 January 25, 2002 f

NESCAC alters athletic policies
ALISON L. McCONNELL
ORIENT STAFF

The New England Small College Athletic Association presidents met on December 13 in Boston to discuss admissions procedures for rated athletes. Bowdoin College President Barry Mills said that a few important developments emerged from that meeting.

"We had a follow-up discussion about the issues related to admissions," he said. "At that meeting, Williams, Amherst, and Wesleyan announced a reduction in the number of rated athletes that is consistent...with what Bowdoin is doing."

"It was gratifying to see that these other three schools are going to take similar kinds of action," Mills said.

Ten days prior to the meeting, Bowdoin Dean of Admissions Jim Miller announced that the College would admit 20 percent fewer rated athletes next year.

The only other NESCAC school aside from the aforementioned institutions to make such a statement at the December 13 meeting was Middlebury. "Middlebury announced that they were going to take similar actions, but they were less specific in their actual goals," Mills said.

"The numbers aren't as important as the principle that they're going to do this," Mills said. "There was general agreement around the table that the level of reduction for rated athletes would be about the same as it was here at Bowdoin."

No other specific commitments have been publicized from the six other schools in the league.

According to Mills, the presidents agreed to continue meeting and talking about admissions systems and the definition of rated athletes. A rated athlete is one marked as 'desirable' for admission by a coach. "We want to understand the vocabulary when we talk together," Mills said.

Giving an example of such difficulties in school-to-school comparison, Mills cited Williams and Amherst: schools that do not count legacies in their number of rated athletes. "That's one of the reasons we want to get the admissions people together and make sure we're all talking in the same way," he said.

Mills indicated that the process would continue through this year and into the future. "We need to continue to talk about appropriate candidates for admissions," he said. The presidents need to agree that the basic principle upon which the NESCAC was formed-that students who are at any of these schools and participate in athletics should be representative of the student body as a whole-continues to be a principle that we believe appropriate for the NESCAC."

The next presidents meeting will take place sometime in the spring. Meanwhile, the College administration plans to keep the discussion ball rolling.
"I think we're going to continue in our goal to reach this NESCAC standard," Mills said. "We have to make sure that we understand and support the importance of athletics on this campus. I'll be working with Jeff Ward and Jim Miller, and we're going to be focusing on ways to create better communication between coaches and faulty.

"We'll be working on ways to enhance both the athletic and academic experience for people who participate in athletics on this campus," he continued. "I think it's very important for us to recognize the value that both the coaches and the faculty have here as teachers. We're all working toward the same goals and creating greater levels of communication to try to reach those goals."