Although they had the power to reverse the decision to eliminate four varsity sports, Ohio University’s Board of Trustees ultimately supported the action at their Friday meeting in Chillicothe.

“We’re proud of people criticizing us, and we’re happy we were there,” said board Chairman R. Gregory Browning. “Yet the fundamentals of finances and gender equality and quality programming ended up being what drove this decision.”

Representatives from the cut teams presented the board with petitions and complained about a lack of student input Thursday night at the Student Life, Human Resources and Athletics Committee meeting.

“We really heard a lot of excellent points by our students,” said trustee M. Marnette Perry. “I know that everyone in that room was just taken by how well developed our students were in their presentations, points and the way they caused us to look at them.”

The trustees were also impressed with “the flexibility they were willing to show and their commitment to the university, to competition and to each other,” Perry said.

While the trustees did not change the decision, they acknowledged a need for improved communication.

“We admittedly weren’t as successful at that as we should have been,” Perry said. “I heard that loudly and clearly from everyone in the room.”

The board cited budget concerns when supporting the administration’s decision.

“The current athletic director and administration inherited difficulties not of their making,” trustee Larry Schey said. “The current structure could not be maintained at the level we hold ourselves to.”

Although the department’s budget was a driving force behind the decision, the process by which decisions like cutting varsity sports are made could be improved, said Lydia Gerthoffer, a student trustee.

“While the decision has been shown to be correct, there’s always a better way to communicate and a better way to create a process,” Gerthoffer said. “A large constituent group has lost faith in this process.”

OU created a seven-person advisory committee in the summer of 2006 to discuss the cuts. Before the decision was made, OU offered the second-highest amount of athletic programs in the Mid-American Conference but had the third-smallest operating budget.

Kirby Hocutt, director of Athletics, said during his presentation that without action, OU would not have been completely certified by the NCAA under Title IX. The university will go through an NCAA compliance evaluation in 2008.

“There is no textbook way for going through what we’ve been through, and there are no easy answers,” he said.