The Vassar Ultimate Frisbee Team accepts anyone interested in playing. Members are not required to attend every practice, and there is no coach responsible for dictating how a particular practice or game is run. Instead, student captains lead and guide the team, but do not enforce specific requirements on commitment or conduct. Team members are responsible for their own decisions, both in how they play on the field and how they relate to the larger Vassar community. Our team budget allows us to travel away from Vassar and play the sport we love with colleges all over the northeast. In covering the cost of tournament fees as well as transportation and gas, our budget allows members to play frisbee without paying money out of their pockets.
On Sunday, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) voted 23 to 1 to fine the team the $3,000 we were awarded during this year’s supplemental budgeting as a result of the actions of some members of the team. It is our understanding that this cut in funding was intended to send a message to the team regarding the members who were written up for drinking beer at a practice before October Break. But the impact of this action will be felt in drastically different ways.
Many students at Vassar are conscious of class distinctions, and how our society radically separates those with money from those without. On campus, within the “Vassar bubble,” many of us believe that these distinctions fade into the background. Instead of focusing on the economic status of a particular person, we can conceive of them as simply a Vassar student with similar commitments and responsibilities as ourselves. Campus organizations such as the Vassar Outing Club and Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE) further act to blur class distinctions by making shows or off-campus excursions freely available to any Vassar student interested. Instead of only those with money being able to buy tickets to attend the Grizzly Bear show, anyone willing to wait in line for long enough got to go.
The Vassar Ultimate Frisbee Team is another such organization. It brings together students interested in playing the sport of frisbee and allows them, regardless of their class background, to attend tournaments. Just like other sports organizations on campus—whether intramural or varsity—ultimate frisbee players do not have to pay to attend their sporting events. The VSA decision to fine the team an amount which is about one-third of its operating budget no longer makes this possible.
With the drastic drop in team budgeting comes not an impetus for the team to change its perceived ways, but rather an elimination of the possibility of participating in the sport for those without the economic means to pay 40 or 50 dollars for a weekend of frisbee.
Is there a way to chastise the team without limiting its membership to only those with the monetary means to pay? While this question was repeatedly asked of the frisbee leaders at Sunday’s VSA Council, the bylaws of the VSA Constitution consist of a specific set of penalties that include only minimal punishments such as an official reprimand, or severe penalties such as the freezing of all funds or the decertification of an organization. This small set of “options” seems to constrain the VSA’s ability to respond to incidents by addressing the context under which they occurred.
If the goal was to both encourage more responsible behavior as well as protect Vassar’s image, we feel a fine of this severity was not productive. If anything, limiting funding gives the ultimate team fewer opportunities to positively represent Vassar College when visiting other schools off campus.The frisbee team is in a unique situation at Vassar in which we are able to play not just Division III schools, but also Division I universities and other large schools that Vassar sports teams do not otherwise encounter. Everywhere we go, Vassar Ultimate carries a high level of spirit and sportsmanship. Without sacrificing competitiveness, we seek to foster good relationships with all the teams we visit. Over the years, we have created a number of close connections with other ultimate teams in the area. This is one of the reasons we are so disheartened that the on-campus actions of some members of the team have prevented us from fully being able to positively represent Vassar off-campus.
We feel that there are still possible alternatives to the punishment that we received, and the collective minds of the VSA might be the best place to explore those options. A number of solutions seem more in line with an intended goal of limiting future such incidents: have a meeting with the team explaining the expectations of the VSA and how they would like the frisbee team culture to change; stronger punishments for the individuals found responsible of having an open container at practice; or limiting the use of the space in which the actual incident occurred. But instead of decreasing the possibility of such occurrences or changing the environment that lead to such an infraction, the VSA ruling merely acts to cut off many of those interested in ultimate frisbee from access to the sport itself.
—The Vassar Ultimate Frisbee Team
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