The Stanford Band: The Best Show Out There
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The Leland Stanford University Marching Band is truly entertaining. And I’m not referring to their half-time shows or Bohemian attitude. Those are amusing, but hardly rise to the level of the sublime. No, I’m thinking of the Band’s relation to the administration.
The most recent episode in the Band’s tumultuous repartee with the administration began on July 17th, when several members of the Band apparently vandalized the Band’s old building. The Band had just finished moving into a new practice space, dubbed “Shak III,” when the vandalism occurred. Vice Provost of Student Affairs Greg Boardman placed the Band on immediate suspension the next day. Initial reports estimated the damages at between $30,000 and $50,000. In September, Boardman placed the Band on “indefinite provisional status” and appointed Chris Griffith as interim director of the Band to oversee a return to normalcy. With the exception of the Band Run, the Band was barred from performing at events until the beginning of October, and has now returned to operation, but with heightened oversight.
The Band’s current trouble, however, has plenty of antecedents. Two particular episodes stand-out, in 1986 and 1990.
In November of 1986, the Band was suspended from performing at upcoming football games by Athletic Director Andy Geiger after several Band members urinated on the field during a field show at San Diego State. This suspension included no Band halftime show at Big Game. The reaction from the student body was swift and livid. Nearly unanimously, students decried the actions of the Athletic Department, clamored for the reinstatement of the band, accused the athletic department of applying a double Standard to the Band versus athletes’ behavior, and asked whether one man, the athletic director, had the prerogative to decide the morals and values of an entire institution. Eventually, the Band brokered a compromise that included the imposition of restrictions on the use of alcohol in their organization, an ironic foreshadowing of the alcohol restrictions that have caused the Band so much trouble more recently.
The second, better-known incident took place in 1990 during a football away-game at Oregon. The Band’s half-time show criticized Oregon for its logging laws, as a result of which the Band was asked not to return to Oregon. As a result, the Athletic department decided to screen the Band’s field shows at away games, as they had already done for home games. The Band was ultimately only suspended for one game. The backlash against the administration, however, was far from sanguine. Students and alumni cried fowl, questioning the incentives of an athletic department that would rather censor and censure Stanford students than protect their freedom to voice a political opinion. In 1990, as in 1986, the student and alumni opinion conflicted with the administration’s. Both experiences leave one unsure of the administration’s actual intentions in monitoring and constraining the Band.
In many ways, the current situation is far more ambiguous than in 1990. Prior to the incident in July, the Band was already on alcohol probation and under the administration’s skeptical eye. Tommy Leep was already the second Tree in a row to have made headlines for running afoul of the NCAA at basketball tournaments. The reaction of the administration has by many counts been moderate and reasonable. The Band has resumed performing at home athletic events and non-athletic events not long after the beginning of the fall quarter. And, though the administration is imposing a tight leash, Band manager Adam Cohen told The Review that they seem to be doing so with the best intentions: “We believe there are persons involved, like Chris Griffith, who are fostering [a] spirit of good will and mutual respect.” Athletic director Bob Bowlsby told The Review that, save for its disciplinary problems, the Band is an asset: “It would certainly be much better for the department of athletics if the Band was participating.”
On the other hand, some questions remain. Many students have noted that the vandalized Band Shak was to be torn down, and ask whether band members involved in the incident misbehaved any more than those who had the administration’s permission to leave the old Stanford Stadium with bleachers and dug up earth after the last game played there, against Notre Dame last November. Furthermore, it seems that extent of the damage to the Band shack has been greatly exaggerated. Cohen notes: “The damage estimate previously mentioned in various media, namely $30-50K, was pure speculation, and the final number may prove to be much different.” As he goes on to explain, the costs of the Band’s suspension during the summer affected many beyond the culprits and the Band at large: “the Band’s activities were all canceled, including several charity functions, a wedding for a former Dollie, and many community rallies. Despite this, we went into the new year with our fishing-hat-topped-heads held high.”
The Review’s investigation has yielded a chaotic description of who is governing the band through this turbulent time: an administrator appointed by the Vice Provost oversees an organization funded predominantly by the Athletics Department that has run afoul of sanctions first imposed by the Organizational Conduct Board several years ago. Who decides?
Students seem to have the least say. ASSU Vice President Lauren Graham notes that students support the Band: “In the weeks before school started there was a lot of dialogue on e-mail lists and the Facebook to ‘bring back the Band run’ and ‘preserve a Stanford tradition.’ Overall it seems that the larger student body has been supportive of the Band, especially the Band run and its traditional role for freshmen during orientation.” This seems to be at odds with Bowlsby’s pronouncement that “the Band’s behavior has reflected poorly on the university.” As in 1986 and 1990, one must consider who gets to determine what reflects poorly upon our university.
Among Greg Boardman’s comments to The Review was a reminder that the University expects the Band to hold itself to the Fundamental Standard. Perhaps, however, the University should more proactively hold itself to a fundamental standard of openness. The university’s past disciplinary run-ins with the band give us reason to at least maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. At the heart of the matter, somebody had to decide to take action against the band. At the very least, the University must come clean to the student body with who actually makes decisions regarding the band’s fate and let that person be accountable for what they do. If, however, this University takes seriously its commitment to students’ input and autonomy, it must more openly and consequentially accommodate our voice.
Should opacity and decision-making by the few instead become more prevalent, comments such as these expressed by Greg Smith, a former Band member and alumnus of fifteen years will only become more commonplace: “It seems clear to me, from the steady escalation of punishments, probations, restrictions, and investigations, that the administration has made a deliberate judgment that the creativity, edginess, and fun the Band represents is a completely acceptable casualty if it means any whiff of controversy or scandal can be avoided.
Unfortunately, the administration seems to be making it clear that the Stanford they want is no longer the school I went to.” And that would truly render tragic the stage-play of the Band and administration.
Disclaimer: the author is a member of the Stanford Band.
