DAY IN AND DAY out, practice after practice, the women of the City College cheer and dance team learn choreography and drill new routines in support of the campus and its many events. But according to coaches and team members, the support is not mutual, and the team is fed up.
Trinidad Stassi, director and coach of the dance and cheer team says despite all the work prepping and fine tuning the team all summer (not to mention time and money donated from coaches and directors) to be ready by the first day of the 2013 fall semester, they received little support from college administration.
Stassi adds that the college currently offers no dance courses, though the team has been successful in competition in years past. Courses in several dance disciplines were offered at City College for many years prior to the current budget crisis.
“It’s unfortunate that we have a campus that doesn’t support a dance program because the fact of the matter is we have students, staff and administrators that support it, but we don’t have a curriculum that supports what we do here,” says Stassi.
Bettina Cochran, current student assistant and former standout athlete of Stassi’s, has been a part of the program since 2009 and says she also believes that City College should offer more dance courses.
“For someone like myself who plans on a future in the dance industry, it was tough being pushed out to [American River College] for programs that offer dance, and even there it’s very minimal,” Cochran says.
Cochran, who has been dancing since the age of 6, has been a part of every dance team that City College offers and is currently helping choreograph routines for Stassi and other coaches. She says she hopes to one day open her own studio and teach dance to kids.
Stassi says that the cheer and dance program in the past was promised a faculty position to handle all dance curricula, but the college still has not delivered.
“When [former professor of Health and Athletics] Shirley Brown [who was at City College for 30 years], was here, we were promised from the staff here at Kinesiology, Health and Athletics that we would receive a position for a dance [instructor] on a full-time basis, but then they pushed us out of the division and told us to go with Student Leadership and Development because we were ‘not a sport’ but an ‘athletic activity,’ ” says Stassi.
With over 60 members and many awards from tournament and competition success attributed to the program, Stassi and fellow coaches say they work diligently to ensure support and success for the team and college events. They say all they want in return is to be recognized.
“The only way SCC can have a dance and cheer program is to charter a club,” says Stassi. “So we are a chartered club through Student Leadership and Development. Our program fares well. We will attend the USA Regional Championships in November at UC Davis and then attend Collegiate Nationals [at Anaheim] in March 2014.”
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“These students wouldn’t be here if they didn’t want to participate or didn’t want a cheer or dance team,” says Stassi. “[ARC] doesn’t want a cheer or dance team, Cosumnes doesn’t want a dance or cheer team; we want one!”
Dean of Athletics Mitch Campbell explained that it’s unfortunate that City College had to remove the dance classes from the curriculum, but due to the financial shortfall of the budget crisis, the college was forced to cut back.
“Each class has a certain amount of FTE [Full Time Equivalent] attached to it,” says Campbell. “So each division gets a certain amount of allocated FTE, which translates into the ability to offer classes. When I say we were reduced with FTE, that means we were reduced in the amount of classes that we are able to offer.”
Campbell also remains unsure about the future of a potential revival of the program because of the current budget and FTE allocated to the school.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future,” says Campbell. “If we were to return to our previous number of classes, [adding a cheer and dance course] would be a potential consideration.”
Cochran agreed with Stassi about the balance of support to the cheer team being unequal to that of other similar programs and sports and that a dance curriculum would be beneficial to the students who participate in dance and cheer.
“We make our athletic department look great, and they don’t even support us,” adds Cochran.
Last year, the dance and cheer team placed in the top three at the Collegiate National Tournament, where two-year colleges from all over the country annually participate in competition and where City College has built a reputation for success in the past.
“We always finish in the top three, and we’re going [to the tournament] again in a few more weeks,” said Stassi. “This year is no different.”
Stassi reiterated the importance of college support for a group of people who work hard to make City College look good.
“We want the administration, faculty, and staff to support us,” says Stassi. “We are the spirit of Sac City College. We carry the torch!”
