Athletics
and Wellness at Earlham College
Approved by Earlham College Faculty,
April 2005
Our Mission in Athletics and Wellness
In its commitment to provide the highest quality
undergraduate education in the liberal arts and sciences, Earlham
expects all
its students to develop their intellectual, spiritual and creative
capabilities, and to deepen their understanding of the purposes
to which these capabilities may be put in service. We also expect
students to learn about their bodies and to develop habits of
wellness. From this foundation, we encourage our students to
experience the disciplines and joys of athletic striving and
competition.
We understand wellness to have intertwined physical,
intellectual, spiritual and community aspects. We provide coursework,
facilities
and opportunities for students to grow in wellness, to develop
a deeper understanding of their bodies both through exercise
and study, to learn how to focus their energies and live balanced
lives, and to improve their understanding of the requirements
of health from youth through the decades after graduation.
For all of our students we provide opportunities
for athletic competition in a wide array of sports. These range
from recreational
sports, for those who wish to experience the fun of competition
without the rigor of intense training and practice, through club
sports, involving a higher level of skill and commitment, to
intercollegiate athletics, which provide opportunities for those
students who are good at them to pursue excellence.
The pursuit of excellence in athletics requires
self-sacrifice, discipline, teamwork, and concentrated effort — qualities
we wish to model for all our students. At Earlham, we expect
our best musicians to give concerts, our best scientists to deliver
papers at conferences, our best actors to perform in plays, our
best artists to give showings, and our best athletes to work
with one another and compete against students from other colleges.
Those Who Represent Us in Competition
Earlham seeks to attract students who love sports
and scholarship in equal measure. The ideal Earlham athlete is
as satisfied with
a good paper as a good game, as thrilled by a successful experiment
as a winning race, as comfortable acting in a play as in making
a free throw.
We expect Earlham athletes to be fully involved
in the intellectual, political and social life of the college.
Because athletics are
not the only thing in their lives, they have friends who are
not athletes — friends whom they met in classrooms, in
labs, on committees, in choirs. At Earlham, perhaps even more
than at other small colleges, friends watch friends compete.
Professors respect and appreciate the hard work of athletes in
their courses and look forward to supporting those students in
their athletic endeavors. Well-attended events are evidence that
Earlham athletes are engaged in the larger campus community.
We aspire at Earlham to engage in athletics in
a way that accords with our mission to improve human society.
Successful athletic
performance requires disciplined teamwork by people of different
races, religions, ethnicities, nationalities, economic backgrounds,
political persuasions and sexual orientations. Differences are
both honored and transcended in the pursuit of team goals. We
expect our athletes to collaborate effectively while maintaining
high moral standards of personal conduct — and thereby
model for all to see the possibility of a cooperative human society.
Earlham’s aspirations commit us to offering
a model of college athletics in which academics are fully complementary.
We insist that our athletes be inclusive, tolerant and socially
responsible community members. Earlham athletes are student athletes
in the fullest sense. They receive the same care as non-athletes
throughout the admissions process and in the classroom.
The Values We Bring to Athletic Competition
As a learning institution, we expect Earlham student
athletes to improve from game to game and from season to season.
We expect
Earlham student athletes and Earlham athletic teams to strive
for excellence. We expect them to play consistently with intelligence,
intensity, teamwork and confidence. Our athletic teams are a
profound and visible model of the learning communities we nurture
across the college.
We expect Earlham student athletes and athletic
teams to play to win. We celebrate the students who win graduate
fellowships,
the students who are admitted to medical schools, the students
who perform many hours of volunteer service. These achievements
are signs that Earlham is achieving the excellence it values.
Athletic victories are no different; they are benchmarks of excellence.
Victory is sweet and defeat is bitter. We celebrate
victories, all of us feeling lifted by these accomplishments.
In addition,
victories bring all members of the community (including the alumni)
together in a spirit of joy and community pride. Perhaps best
of all, victories bring feelings of deep satisfaction to the
athletes themselves. Victories become life-long memories — but
so do defeats. We experience with our athletes the frustrations
and disappointments of defeat. For teams that have tried their
best and treated each other with respect and affection, all memories
become good ones.
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