Henderson | Student attendance still lacking for Penn Athletics

N ow that it is about to wrap up, what can we say about Grace Calhoun’s first semester as Penn’s athletic director?

First of all, and most obviously, things have not gone very well on the field. Apart from junior runner Thomas Awad’s world-beating performances, Penn Athletics failed to produce a single fall team that looked like a true Ivy title contender.

Putting the blame on Calhoun for this is asinine; after all, these are the teams she inherited.

However, things have also looked grim in an area where she can exercise more immediate control: student attendance.

It’s no secret that Penn Athletics has a serious problem on its hands in terms of student apathy. In fact, it’s pretty much become a part of campus-wide culture (and is also an issue at many other schools nationally)

What the root of the problem is, I cannot know for sure. The lackluster performances on the field in recent years almost certainly have contributed to it.

But regardless of how unconvincing the results on the field have been, the inevitably empty stands at just about every home contest for just about every Red and Blue squad are evidence that the administration has not done enough over the past few years to connect to students and change their apathetic attitudes.

Now, once again, it would be extremely harsh to blame Calhoun entirely for poor student turnout in the fall season. Much like how she inherited the teams that have failed to contend for Ivy titles, she inherited the university culture that has prevented strong attendance.

This is a long-term, systemic issue that could potentially take years to fix, regardless of what actions are taken throughout the rest of the year.

I am quite confident that Calhoun understands the issue. And I’m confident that she understands the issue on a deep level — that the problem at hand has deep-seated, cultural origins that go beyond on-field results.

The actions she has taken thus far have been consistent with this viewpoint. In fact, she has taken a key first step toward attacking the problem.

At the risk of letting my Wharton side show, I’d like to appeal to conventional organizational change theory: in order to affect a significant change on an organization, one must first get its top supporters on board.

This is exactly what Calhoun has done — or at least attempted to do — this semester by attempting to bring the student-athlete community closer together. Throughout the semester, Penn athletes have been seen walking around campus with matching apparel focused on the term “impact,” and Calhoun would be wise to continue cultivating this campaign moving forward.

But the ultimate goal should be loftier than getting student-athletes to attend each other’s events, so what is the next step towards getting the rest of the student population on board?

At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss Penn’s student population as being inherently uninterested in sports, but this sort of viewpoint is shortsighted. In fact, over 1,000 Penn students participate in club sports and over 4,500 participate in intramurals.

These students compete with close to no fanfare, so it is safe to assume that they have some sort of inherent interest in sports.

Logically, this is the portion of the student population that would be most likely to get on board with Penn Athletics’ broader goal of higher student attendance.

But these students — like the rest of Penn’s student population — need to be incentivized.

Full disclosure: I am a member of the Penn Running Club. I can personally say that something as simple as a group shoutout at Penn Relays would go a long way in getting the club in Penn Athletics’ good graces.

Small gestures like this may seem insignificant in the short-term, but over the years, they will help the athletic administration reach a critical mass of converted students and combat student apathy.

Calhoun has proven that she has a solid grasp of the issue at hand, but it’s time to take the next step towards solving it.

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