Chatham University’s dance team was disbanded this fall – coming as a surprise to the student dancers on the team. With this change, the Athletic Department announced that the University would offer competitive cheering starting in the 2025-26 academic year.
Its members were given the option to join the cheer team, without any need to audition.
“The reason for the disbanding of the dance team is that it was ultimately the best decision that could have been made for everyone involved. The goal was to make cheer and dance a united effort. However, with everything being joint, it was difficult to keep organization and structure,” said Head Cheer Coach Hayley Butler, who joined Chatham earlier in 2024.
“The dance team was already being submerged in the cheer culture with learning the same routines, as well as staying for the entire sporting event. To save everyone from frustration and burnout, the decision was made to disband the dance team, making one team under cheer.”
Athletic director Leonard Trevino said the move will help position Chatham to offer competitive cheering – something that he hopes will help with student recruitment and retention.
“We are all working very hard to make this program something that the community is proud of, and the first step was to fully become one team where everyone is a vital piece of the puzzle,” he said.
At the time of the announcement, there were eight students on the dance team; five of them decided to join the cheer team. Two of them were former dance captains. According to some of the dancers, the team generally performed a mix of jazz and hip hop, and the dance captains were tasked with leading practices and choreographing routines.
While some said they were satisfied with being given another opportunity to showcase their talents, others are still upset due to the lack of clear understanding of what prompted this change.
Dance team member Haileigh Stephens ‘24 said that there had been challenges with figuring out practice times and sharing space in the Athletic & Fitness Center.
“But I feel like there were other solutions to managing the time and space issue rather than just cutting a whole team,” she said. “I personally don’t feel like they justified eliminating the whole team. Yeah, like weeks after practices had been happening and everything.”
Sara Bouch ‘24 echoed her former teammate’s disappointment; neither she nor Stephens will be joining the cheer team.
“It’s nice that they said that anyone was automatically on the [cheer] team, but dance and cheer aren’t the same,” Stephens explained, “and I think for some of us, like, if we wanted to be on the dance or the cheer team, we would have tried out originally for the cheer team.”
