Utica University (recently renamed from Utica College) has announced that it will cut their swimming and diving program. The university becomes the fifth New York school to lose their NCAA Swimming and Diving program in 2023.
Medaille University, Cazenovia College, Buffalo State, and St. Francis are the other schools losing their programs. Medaille and Cazenovia have shut down entirely, citing enrollment challenges. All these programs were Division III, except St. Francis which was Division I.
Both the Pioneer men and women’s teams finished in fourth at the Empire 8 Championships. Both teams also had winning dual meet records, with the women going 8-6 and the men 8-5. Utica faced both Medaille and Cazenovia in dual meet action this season, winning both meets. Additionally, Medaille was also a member of the Empire 8.
During the 2022-23 season, the school sponsored 12 men’s sports and 15 women’s. Nine women were on the swim and dive team; eight swimmers and one diver. Five men competed for the Pioneers last season. While those numbers are better than Medaille’s (which had 4 women, 3 men), they reflect the same theme of ongoing issues with roster size. With nationwide higher education numbers falling, a number of colleges and universities around the country face similar problems, especially private schools like Utica.
Erin Knight served as the program’s head coach for 14 years. She’s also the women’s water polo coach. Courtney Kennedy, a Utica alum and member of both the swimming and water polo teams, worked as the assistant coach for the last two seasons.
This year, Utica University has announced cuts outside the athletics department as well. In January, the school’s Board of Trustees announced they were planning to cut 15 majors with low enrollment. After significant backlash which included university faculty censuring the Board, that number was reduced to 13, as the plan was revised to keep the chemistry and physics programs. International Studies, Spanish, PR and Marketing, and Philosophy were among the cut majors.
In February, Utica University also announced that Dr. Todd Pfannestiel, the current provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, will take over for Dr. Laura Casamento as President on August 1st, 2023.
In 2021, the university had 2,810 students enrolled.
Swim programs need to make it a priority to try to get outside funding, (maybe from alumni), school support, and be competitive.
You need every reason to convince a school that you shouldn’t be dropped.
Something more easily said than done
And it has a lot more to do with JVW’s point. Declining enrollment because of the academic drop off is going to cause a lot of issues for small schools in general. It’s more than just a swimming issue.
Not good. Here we go again.
This whole issue of declining enrollments is going to wreck havoc on intercollegiate athletics in the years to come. It’s also going to cause some smaller struggling colleges to close down altogether, and it is going to limit the number of replacements who will be hired for retiring professors. The school district where I swam back in the 1980s had five high school programs, and each team would have somewhere between 15 and 30 swimmers every single year. These days those five schools have been consolidated into two team, and both schools have at best 20 swimmers. I know there are parts of the country where families are thriving and swim programs are growing, but there are an awful lot… Read more »
Do you think this is partly due to how expensive and time consuming club swimming is? Most kids in high school can’t swim and do anything else. My son manages by not doing the elite group at club so he can still march in marching band, do orchestra, and 4 AP classes. I just think everything wasn’t so intense in the 80s. Now, kids have to pick and specialize in one thing usually. (Aside from the overall declining enrollment which is a large issue)