With the Hopkins Department of Athletics and Recreation's decision on Feb. 19 to cut the crew team, effective at the end of the Spring 2009 season, many students and alumni channeled their frustration at the decision towards efforts to save the team, as seen through the site, save.jhucrew.org.
The site currently has 62 donors, according to a site creator John Faulkingham, and has raised $55,116 for the coming year with annual commitments for the following five of $26,041 per year, which totals to $185,186 over the next six years.
Despite receiving this support, Athletic Director Tom Calder insists that the crew team will not be reinstated.
"There isn't any reason to raise money; the decision is final," he said.
The vast majority of donors are crew alumni. Additionally, a small number of donations came from friends of Hopkins crew, such as parents or other alumni who did not row and several people who are involved in the rowing world in general who wanted to give, in Faulkingham's words, "a statement of their support."
This money is not currently in the hands of Faulkingham, but will instead be collected if the program is effectively saved.
The site's main creator is Doug Keen. Keen, alum of Hopkins crew from the class of 2001 also coached the team for a number of years.
"After Doug Keen and I learned about the termination of Hopkins crew," Faulkingham said, "we put our heads together to figure out what we can do to help save the program. We thought the online petition would be a good idea - it's a place to post messages and pledge financial support for the program."
Many Hopkins students find that the firmness in Calder's refusal to reinstate the crew team is too harsh.
"People are willing to put money down to have the crew team next year, but the main problem is not the money issue; it's just the sports administration," freshman Bob Huang said.
"They are unwilling to allow us permission to continue the team. It's not a matter of finance, at all because the team can pretty much sustain itself through its own endowment if necessary."
However, Calder insists that the crew teams' financial stability cannot be ensured through outside investors.
"You can never count on outside support, I'm assuming people have made pledges and all that, but you really just don't know how all that is going to work out," he said.
Calder explained in an earlier interview that there would not be a club team in the future due to safety issues. "We told the athletes we're not going to start a club team because it's still going to be expensive, and you won't have the supervision on the water that we have with our current coaching staff," he said.
Despite the fact that Faulkingham is not very optimistic about the crew teams fate, he insists that his efforts will continue until July 1.
"Universities have to get their budget in check way before the fiscal year starts, which is July first, so the sooner we get to that time without crew being something that they are budgeting for, the more difficult to be to revive the program. So that I guess is the ultimate drop dead," he said.
"The most devoted rowers are looking to transfer to other schools where they can continue rowing competitively at the collegiate level. They are the backbone of the program and once they're gone it would be very difficult to have a solid team again," he said in an effort to explain why the team needed to be revived now.
Huang plans to join another sport if the crew team is not reinstated next year.
"A lot of people are willing to join the Baltimore rowing club," he said. "It is [more] convenient [than transferring]. The Inner Harbor is really close, but it would be hard for me to do it because of transportation issues. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to drive there every morning and having to provide my own transportation to and from there is a bit difficult."
