//features//
Spring 2018
Thrown into the Deep End of Dodge
Maya Bickel
On April 26, 1916, an undergraduate student at Columbia College received a letter from Frederick P. Keppel, the Dean of Columbia College, regarding the student’s failure to fulfill the swimming requirement.
“Dear Sir,” the letter begins, “the Director of the Gymnasium has reported you as negligent in satisfying the swimming requirement in Physical Education A.” The unnamed student had to report to Dr. Meylan, the Director of the Gymnasium, and then report back to the dean.
Today, as a requirement necessary to graduate, the swim test remains a key part of the Columbia College experience. Students must swim three continuous laps of any stroke to pass the test and successfully complete the requirement. Swimming ability, though, is strongly related to socio-economic status, and a 2017 USA Swimming Foundation study found that 79 percent of children in families with household income less than $50,000 have low or no swimming ability. Sixteen percent of Columbia’s undergraduates receive the Pell Grant, a need-based grant from the federal government for undergraduates, for which the qualifying income is $50,000 a year or less. Many other students at Columbia who come from immigrant families or are international students are less likely to have learned how to swim.
Sena Adansi, a first year student who lives down the floor from me in Carman, says she barely knows how to swim. “Both of my parents are immigrants, and while they were in Ghana they didn’t learn how to swim.” Adansi says her dad never learned how to swim, but her mom, who came to the United States before him, eventually did. She is concerned about the swim test, and says that “other beginner swimmers, or people who have never swam in their life, are probably scared as well.” The Columbia Physical Education webpage advises students who cannot swim to take the beginner swim course, offered every semester. Passing the course will fulfill the swim test requirement and one physical education credit. However, this course fills up quickly, and when it was time for Adansi to register for classes for her first semester, it was already full.
Although there is now a Columbia tradition to wait until the end of senior year to take the test, when the swim test was first instituted in the early 20th century, students had to fulfill the requirement their freshman year. As early as 1906, the Columbia Daily Spectator published announcements notifying freshman that they had to make arrangements for their swimming examination, which at the time consisted of one lap (25 yards) in the pool. “Those unable to swim must take instruction...taught daily except Saturday in the pool by the instructor from 4:30 to 6,” reads an October 30th, 1906, announcement. Today, however, the university does little to reach out to students who may not be able to swim to help them find ways to pass the test.
Students who are unable to take the swim test for physical or psychological reasons can apply for a waiver from the University Health Services, and students who have other concerns about passing the swim test--often on the grounds of religious observance or gender expression--can contact the Director of Physical Education, Jeffrey Ryder.
I sat in Ryder’s spacious office on the third floor of Uris to talk to him and Anne Marie Skylis, the Assistant Director of Physical Education, about the swim test requirement. Representatives for the department seemed uneasy about my inquiries, asking me repeatedly what my intentions were with the article. Ryder took over as Director of Physical Education in September, and told me that he reached out to Ken Torrey, who retired as Associate Athletics Director for Physical Education in June 2015 after 42 years working with Columbia athletics, to learn more about the swim test and its history before meeting with me.
To Ryder, the swim test is invaluable. “It’s a good skill to have, but it’s also an important life-saving skill to have, because you don’t know what situations you are going to find yourself in,” he says. “Unfortunately, there are still students across the country that do drown every year.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drowning is the fifth-leading cause of unintentional deaths in the United States. Adansi feels similarly to Ryder, and even though she is worried about the test, she thinks everybody should have that skill. “Overall I would want to keep the swim test because it’s more important at the end of the day” to know how to swim.
The swim test used to be a common requirement at colleges and universities, beginning around the turn of the 20th century. Robert McCaughey, who wrote Stand, Columbia, a book on the history of the university, says it may be linked to a change in admissions policy beginning in 1891 that attempted to limit the number of Jewish students at Columbia. Most Jewish students came from New York City, and were therefore less likely to be able to swim. Cornell, the first university to institute the swim test, followed the lead of service academies, which instituted the requirement in 1905 with the belief that soldiers must know how to swim. Perhaps Columbia simply followed Cornell’s lead.
The Columbia swim test requirement has survived despite previous threats to its existence. In the week of October 20th, 1991, around 50 faculty members of Columbia College sat in a meeting, and discussed an appeal to abolish the swim test requirement. Until 1991, all Columbia College and School of Engineering students had to pass the swim test to get their degrees. Roger Lehecka was Dean of Students during that time, and is now a seminar instructor in the Center for American Studies. During his tenure he supported an initiative in the Columbia College committee on instruction (COI) to abolish the swim test requirement. The COI oversees all new majors, courses, and other policy changes, including degree requirements, and although it has evolved over the years, it primarily consists of some faculty members, the Dean of Students, and a handful of student representatives.
Lehecka speaks slowly and carefully, and asked more questions in the interview than he answered. For a degree requirement, he says, “I should be able to look a student in the eye and say you don’t deserve a degree because you didn’t do this.” The swim test, though, is “an indefensible thing to expect that someone has to do in order to get a degree.” In early September 1991, the Columbia College COI agreed to eliminate the swim test from the list of degree requirements. However, the final decision lay with the faculty of Columbia College, who had to approve the change at their monthly meeting. Students at the engineering school were inspired by the Columbia College COI’s decision, and shortly afterwards, the Engineering Student Council voted to send a letter to the engineering school’s COI recommending an abolition of the swim test.
At the September Columbia College faculty meeting, the swim test decision was tabled, and professors said they needed more time to discuss the proposal. At the next meeting, though, in October, the faculty discussed the swim test and then prepared to vote. Lehecka recalls that the faculty meeting was bizarre. “Most faculty wasn’t even aware there was a requirement,” he says. “I don’t think it was a particularly informed discussion.” One of the main points of discussion revolved around whether abandoning the requirement would differentiate Columbia from the other Ivy League schools.
David Helfand, a professor in Columbia’s astronomy department, was also at the faculty meeting and strongly opposed the swim test. Helfand talks sharply and caustically about the requirement, and still adamantly opposes it. At the faculty meeting, he says, “I suggested that since more people die of choking than die of drowning, a requirement should be that each graduate as they walk across the stage should do the Heimlich maneuver on the president.” University President Michael Sovern, who was chairing the faculty meeting, was not amused. Helfand also recalled that the vote was extremely close. Fewer than 50 faculty members were present, and since 50 represented the quorum required for a vote, the vote was not legal. Helfand called for a quorum count, but Sovern refused, Helfand remembers. Ultimately, the Columbia College faculty voted to keep the requirement, against the wishes of the COI. However, the engineering school’s proposal succeeded, and the requirement for the engineering school was abolished in 1992.
In a 2006 NBC article about swim test requirements, Larry Hensley, a University of Northern Iowa professor who has studied the history of physical education, said that “as recently as a 1977 survey, 42 percent of institutions had some sort of swimming requirement, but by 1982 that figure had plummeted to 8 percent”. When Princeton abolished its swim test requirement in 1990, Eric Stein, an associate director of athletics at Princeton, called the requirement both unenforceable and anachronistic. Regardless of the reasons behind its institution, the swim test is a relic from a different time. This argument is one of Helfand’s main objections to the requirement. “When this was an institution for upper class white males students who had a certain background in prep school, maybe it wasn’t such a big deal,” he says. “But it seems wholly inappropriate now, when we have lots of students who haven’t had, because of their circumstances, the opportunity or the occasion to learn to swim as a child.”
For the majority of graduates, who already know how to swim when they get to Columbia, the swim test is a trivial requirement. However, some students do not receive their diploma on time because of the swim test. Gregory Fassuliotis and Moorea Maguire, who administer the swim test, have given it to at least four people this year who had already graduated but had yet to receive their diplomas because they had not successfully completed the swim test requirement. In contrast, according to a 2012 story published by NPR about college swim tests, Bryn Mawr’s swim coach and aquatics director Nikki Whitlock said in her six years working there she had never seen a student fail to meet the requirement and not graduate. According to the Columbia registrar’s office, there is no data on students who do not graduate on time or at all due to the swim test. The physical education department also does not track that data.
Other universities that have a swim test requirement keep track of students who still need to pass the test and take active steps to help all students with the requirement. At MIT, for example, there is a freshman swim test during orientation, where most students get the test over early or have the chance to register for a swim class for the first semester. At Cornell, a swim test hold is placed on a student’s record until he or she passes the test or passes two semesters of beginning swimming and has the recommendation of the instructor.
The debate over whether the swim test should be a degree requirement is ultimately one about the broader purpose of a university education. Skylis explained that the swim test requirement should be necessary in order to get a Columbia degree because “education goes beyond academics.” Helfand, however, disagrees. “If one takes what I regard as a modern definition of a university education, which is it’s about preparing for life intellectually, I don’t see the purpose of having someone swim back and forth in a pool.”
“Dear Sir,” the letter begins, “the Director of the Gymnasium has reported you as negligent in satisfying the swimming requirement in Physical Education A.” The unnamed student had to report to Dr. Meylan, the Director of the Gymnasium, and then report back to the dean.
Today, as a requirement necessary to graduate, the swim test remains a key part of the Columbia College experience. Students must swim three continuous laps of any stroke to pass the test and successfully complete the requirement. Swimming ability, though, is strongly related to socio-economic status, and a 2017 USA Swimming Foundation study found that 79 percent of children in families with household income less than $50,000 have low or no swimming ability. Sixteen percent of Columbia’s undergraduates receive the Pell Grant, a need-based grant from the federal government for undergraduates, for which the qualifying income is $50,000 a year or less. Many other students at Columbia who come from immigrant families or are international students are less likely to have learned how to swim.
Sena Adansi, a first year student who lives down the floor from me in Carman, says she barely knows how to swim. “Both of my parents are immigrants, and while they were in Ghana they didn’t learn how to swim.” Adansi says her dad never learned how to swim, but her mom, who came to the United States before him, eventually did. She is concerned about the swim test, and says that “other beginner swimmers, or people who have never swam in their life, are probably scared as well.” The Columbia Physical Education webpage advises students who cannot swim to take the beginner swim course, offered every semester. Passing the course will fulfill the swim test requirement and one physical education credit. However, this course fills up quickly, and when it was time for Adansi to register for classes for her first semester, it was already full.
Although there is now a Columbia tradition to wait until the end of senior year to take the test, when the swim test was first instituted in the early 20th century, students had to fulfill the requirement their freshman year. As early as 1906, the Columbia Daily Spectator published announcements notifying freshman that they had to make arrangements for their swimming examination, which at the time consisted of one lap (25 yards) in the pool. “Those unable to swim must take instruction...taught daily except Saturday in the pool by the instructor from 4:30 to 6,” reads an October 30th, 1906, announcement. Today, however, the university does little to reach out to students who may not be able to swim to help them find ways to pass the test.
Students who are unable to take the swim test for physical or psychological reasons can apply for a waiver from the University Health Services, and students who have other concerns about passing the swim test--often on the grounds of religious observance or gender expression--can contact the Director of Physical Education, Jeffrey Ryder.
I sat in Ryder’s spacious office on the third floor of Uris to talk to him and Anne Marie Skylis, the Assistant Director of Physical Education, about the swim test requirement. Representatives for the department seemed uneasy about my inquiries, asking me repeatedly what my intentions were with the article. Ryder took over as Director of Physical Education in September, and told me that he reached out to Ken Torrey, who retired as Associate Athletics Director for Physical Education in June 2015 after 42 years working with Columbia athletics, to learn more about the swim test and its history before meeting with me.
To Ryder, the swim test is invaluable. “It’s a good skill to have, but it’s also an important life-saving skill to have, because you don’t know what situations you are going to find yourself in,” he says. “Unfortunately, there are still students across the country that do drown every year.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drowning is the fifth-leading cause of unintentional deaths in the United States. Adansi feels similarly to Ryder, and even though she is worried about the test, she thinks everybody should have that skill. “Overall I would want to keep the swim test because it’s more important at the end of the day” to know how to swim.
The swim test used to be a common requirement at colleges and universities, beginning around the turn of the 20th century. Robert McCaughey, who wrote Stand, Columbia, a book on the history of the university, says it may be linked to a change in admissions policy beginning in 1891 that attempted to limit the number of Jewish students at Columbia. Most Jewish students came from New York City, and were therefore less likely to be able to swim. Cornell, the first university to institute the swim test, followed the lead of service academies, which instituted the requirement in 1905 with the belief that soldiers must know how to swim. Perhaps Columbia simply followed Cornell’s lead.
The Columbia swim test requirement has survived despite previous threats to its existence. In the week of October 20th, 1991, around 50 faculty members of Columbia College sat in a meeting, and discussed an appeal to abolish the swim test requirement. Until 1991, all Columbia College and School of Engineering students had to pass the swim test to get their degrees. Roger Lehecka was Dean of Students during that time, and is now a seminar instructor in the Center for American Studies. During his tenure he supported an initiative in the Columbia College committee on instruction (COI) to abolish the swim test requirement. The COI oversees all new majors, courses, and other policy changes, including degree requirements, and although it has evolved over the years, it primarily consists of some faculty members, the Dean of Students, and a handful of student representatives.
Lehecka speaks slowly and carefully, and asked more questions in the interview than he answered. For a degree requirement, he says, “I should be able to look a student in the eye and say you don’t deserve a degree because you didn’t do this.” The swim test, though, is “an indefensible thing to expect that someone has to do in order to get a degree.” In early September 1991, the Columbia College COI agreed to eliminate the swim test from the list of degree requirements. However, the final decision lay with the faculty of Columbia College, who had to approve the change at their monthly meeting. Students at the engineering school were inspired by the Columbia College COI’s decision, and shortly afterwards, the Engineering Student Council voted to send a letter to the engineering school’s COI recommending an abolition of the swim test.
At the September Columbia College faculty meeting, the swim test decision was tabled, and professors said they needed more time to discuss the proposal. At the next meeting, though, in October, the faculty discussed the swim test and then prepared to vote. Lehecka recalls that the faculty meeting was bizarre. “Most faculty wasn’t even aware there was a requirement,” he says. “I don’t think it was a particularly informed discussion.” One of the main points of discussion revolved around whether abandoning the requirement would differentiate Columbia from the other Ivy League schools.
David Helfand, a professor in Columbia’s astronomy department, was also at the faculty meeting and strongly opposed the swim test. Helfand talks sharply and caustically about the requirement, and still adamantly opposes it. At the faculty meeting, he says, “I suggested that since more people die of choking than die of drowning, a requirement should be that each graduate as they walk across the stage should do the Heimlich maneuver on the president.” University President Michael Sovern, who was chairing the faculty meeting, was not amused. Helfand also recalled that the vote was extremely close. Fewer than 50 faculty members were present, and since 50 represented the quorum required for a vote, the vote was not legal. Helfand called for a quorum count, but Sovern refused, Helfand remembers. Ultimately, the Columbia College faculty voted to keep the requirement, against the wishes of the COI. However, the engineering school’s proposal succeeded, and the requirement for the engineering school was abolished in 1992.
In a 2006 NBC article about swim test requirements, Larry Hensley, a University of Northern Iowa professor who has studied the history of physical education, said that “as recently as a 1977 survey, 42 percent of institutions had some sort of swimming requirement, but by 1982 that figure had plummeted to 8 percent”. When Princeton abolished its swim test requirement in 1990, Eric Stein, an associate director of athletics at Princeton, called the requirement both unenforceable and anachronistic. Regardless of the reasons behind its institution, the swim test is a relic from a different time. This argument is one of Helfand’s main objections to the requirement. “When this was an institution for upper class white males students who had a certain background in prep school, maybe it wasn’t such a big deal,” he says. “But it seems wholly inappropriate now, when we have lots of students who haven’t had, because of their circumstances, the opportunity or the occasion to learn to swim as a child.”
For the majority of graduates, who already know how to swim when they get to Columbia, the swim test is a trivial requirement. However, some students do not receive their diploma on time because of the swim test. Gregory Fassuliotis and Moorea Maguire, who administer the swim test, have given it to at least four people this year who had already graduated but had yet to receive their diplomas because they had not successfully completed the swim test requirement. In contrast, according to a 2012 story published by NPR about college swim tests, Bryn Mawr’s swim coach and aquatics director Nikki Whitlock said in her six years working there she had never seen a student fail to meet the requirement and not graduate. According to the Columbia registrar’s office, there is no data on students who do not graduate on time or at all due to the swim test. The physical education department also does not track that data.
Other universities that have a swim test requirement keep track of students who still need to pass the test and take active steps to help all students with the requirement. At MIT, for example, there is a freshman swim test during orientation, where most students get the test over early or have the chance to register for a swim class for the first semester. At Cornell, a swim test hold is placed on a student’s record until he or she passes the test or passes two semesters of beginning swimming and has the recommendation of the instructor.
The debate over whether the swim test should be a degree requirement is ultimately one about the broader purpose of a university education. Skylis explained that the swim test requirement should be necessary in order to get a Columbia degree because “education goes beyond academics.” Helfand, however, disagrees. “If one takes what I regard as a modern definition of a university education, which is it’s about preparing for life intellectually, I don’t see the purpose of having someone swim back and forth in a pool.”
//MAYA BICKEL is a first year in Columbia College. She can be reached at [email protected]. Photo courtesy of Columbia Athletics.