As a Smith alumna who rode while at college and as a mother of a teenage girl who has been riding at the Smith barn for the past four years, I am dismayed at Smith’s decision to demote their riding team and close their barn (“Equestrian dropped as varsity sport,” Jan. 4).
The riding team was everything to me as a Smith student, and has been a huge part of my daughter’s life, as it has for many other kids in the community.
I also have to wonder if there is some plan that the college has for the land that has prompted this move. As a Northampton resident, I have to be concerned about the possibility that they are planning to build something in the space where the barn and the fields currently reside. How will this change that part of our community?
I think it should be noted that hundreds of concerned alumnae have written to the administration and the board of trustees and, other than an initial form letter response, we have received nothing from any of our correspondences.
The college has been completely mum on the subject since before Christmas, and have not given its own alumnae the courtesy of a conversation.
Beth Gatti
Florence