After four years as a staff writer, section editor and managing editor for

The Spectator

. I have decided to write my final article about a topic near and dear to my heart: the arts.

The past year has shed light on the fact that Hamilton College does not support its student arts groups nearly enough. I speak primarily from the perspective of the President of Special K a cappella, and a member of the Hamilton College choir, but I believe that my argument applies to other visual and performing arts groups on campus as well.

Back in June of 2020, President Wippman sent an email to the Hamilton community about planning for the fall semester. He included a substantial paragraph about how administrators were working hard to phase back a return to NESCAC athletic competition. He followed that paragraph with these two sentences: “We are also studying the impact of public health guidance on other extracurricular activities. We know how important participation in clubs and other student organizations can be to your experience at Hamilton, so we will work with you to find safe ways to engage in group activities.”

Wippman’s promise was empty. First, the clumping of any non-athletic extracurricular activity to “other” shows a lack of understanding of just how important these activities are. For non-student-athletes, activities under the categories of the arts, religious and cultural organizations, community service, campus media, special interest clubs and academic competition groups are

equally important

in their lives as athletics are in the lives of student-athletes. In a normal year, I spend six hours per week at a cappella rehearsals, four hours at choir and more time on my own rehearsing and organizing events. That does not include our actual performances and time spent traveling to invitationals at other colleges. Thus, for many students, the arts are as much of a time commitment as athletics.

Despite this, Hamilton administrators have made it clear that — likely because of the money that athletics bring to the school — they value athletics more than they value the arts. There were entire committees of staff and faculty members dedicated to ensuring that athletics could run as normally as possible this year. On the other hand, the student activities team for all other extracurricular activities consists primarily of solely two individuals: Director of Student Activities Noelle Niznik and Assistant Director of Student Activities Kaity Stewart. While Niznik and Stewart try hard to help student arts groups, they are spread far too thin, and simply do not have the resources to help arts groups meet their needs, let alone their wants.

Thus, my second critique of President Wippman’s email quoted above, is the vagueness of his words “we will work with you.” In reality, the subtext of this was, ‘unless you are an athlete, you have to come to us and do all the research yourself on how to conduct your activity during the pandemic. If you do that, then we will maybe consider helping you, but probably not.’

A constant battle for a cappella groups this year has been between our persistence in wanting to perform and being met with administrative push back. This semester, the COVID task force finally approved outdoor performances at Dunham tent starting in late April. Student Activities told us that we had to maintain 12 foot distancing outside while singing. I asked if the task force could re-evaluate this, and potentially change the requirement to six foot distancing, as the masks and standing 12 feet apart outside makes it nearly impossible to hear each other. Moreover, almost my entire a cappella group would be fully vaccinated by the time of the performance.

Administrators shut this down, telling us to stick to 12 feet. It was not until I sent another follow-up asking the task force to re-evaluate that they made the change. In this second email, I attached the current NY State guidelines for schools, which say that even for indoor singing, six foot distancing is acceptable. I also attached screenshots from the official Hamilton Athletics Instagram page with sports teams huddled up and touching each other, with no social distancing, to show the double standard we were being held to. Then, the task force met again and decided to allow six foot distancing. This shows that in their initial meeting, they did not fully do their research on the science behind aerosol emission while singing outside. They did not work with us, they worked against us, until they were called out on a huge double standard between sports and the arts. This is just one example of administrators failing to take initiative to help the arts. All of the responsibility is on students like myself to become scientific researchers and policy advocates, which is not our job.

Another frustration is that many of my fellow students do not value the arts or understand the hard work that their peers put into these activities. Throughout my four years at Hamilton, getting funding for recording albums for a cappella groups has been a nightmare. Almost every semester we have had to go to Student Assembly meetings to fight against comments telling us that our recordings do not bring value to the Hamilton community and students that are not in our groups. When on the other hand, they have had no issues funding things like “grilling club,” an exclusive group for large feasts that are not open to the Hamilton community.

A cappella groups do so much for the community. We perform free concerts at new student orientation, FebFest, senior week, alumni weekend and more college-sponsored events all throughout a normal year. Admissions also uses our videos when they want to welcome new students. We make no money at these events, so in order to get high quality recordings of our hard work, we need funding. A cappella groups do not profit off of these recordings. They are simply a way for us to share our work with the community.

However, this past summer, Student Assembly added a clause to their funding codes that prohibits student groups from paying outside companies for audio or video recordings. This clause, targeted at a cappella groups, was added without input from anyone in a cappella. When I went to an open Student Assembly meeting in the fall asking how we were supposed to do our recordings (which was then the only way to share our music, since we could not perform), I was told that we should make them ourselves. This shows a lack of understanding about what it means to be in an a cappella group. Being in an a cappella group does not mean you are a professional recording engineer. You are a singer. Even the few students who have taken music production classes do not have the time to mix and master recordings. This is a full time job. Even with nearly $50,000 left over in their budget last semester, Student Assembly kept this clause. It wasn’t until this semester, when they realized quite how much money they were not using due to COVID, that they agreed to provide funding for a cappella groups.

Academic departments, such as the Music Department and the Theater Department, have better access to resources than student groups do, but they are still not given enough support. This semester, the choir was only allowed to perform for a small audience if they sat as far back as possible in Wellin Hall, and were the roommate or suitemate of a choir member. Any student was allowed to attend sporting events. Additionally, even most students taking music lessons for academic credit could not access music practice rooms at all this semester, and were forced to practice in their noisy dorm room. Workout facilities were open to anyone throughout the entire year.

I could provide dozens of more examples of the lack of support for the arts at Hamilton, but I believe I have made my point clear. To clarify, I am glad that student-athletes have been able to compete safely this semester. However, going forward, student-performers need to be treated with the same respect as student-athletes.