NEWS

Simpson to hire shooting coach despite alumni complaints

Grant Rodgers
grodgers@dmreg.com

Simpson College is sticking with its decision to hire a full-time coach for its shooting sports club, despite opposition from a coalition of alumni and prominent supporters who argue guns have no place on a liberal arts campus.

John Greaves, a 2014 Simpson College graduate, instructs a shooter during a club shoot.

During its regular winter meeting Friday, the private Indianola school's board of trustees considered two dueling petitions about the student club's future, Simpson President Jay Simmons wrote in an email. But in the end, the board chose to stand by its decision last year to hire a full-time coach for the club, he said.

Simmons said an offer for the position will likely be made to a candidate "in the next few days," though he declined to discuss a potential salary for the coach.

At the same time, the college will review its procedures for storing firearms and other equipment on campus, as well as policies for accepting gifts, Simmons said.

"Trustees agreed that Simpson’s program is consistent with similar programs at the University of Iowa, Iowa State and many of Iowa’s community colleges," Simmons said in a statement. "… As part of its decision to continue the five-year-old program, trustees directed the college’s administration to review the location for equipment storage; to review policies for accepting gifts in support of the program; and to review procedures for screening potential participants."

An online petition endorsing a "weapons-free Simpson" took issue with a $10,000 grant the club accepted in 2012 from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearm industry trade group that spends millions on lobbying and opposes measures such as expanding background checks to cover private gun sales.

Critics take aim at Simpson College shooting club

The Rev. Rebecca Bentzinger, a 1977 graduate, started the online petition Jan. 27, calling on trustees to reverse their decision to hire a coach. The petition also sought to stop allowing club members, who participate mostly in shotgun competitions, from storing firearms in a locked safe on campus.

Bentzinger, a minister, argued that devoting the private school's resources to the shooting sports club conflicts with the social doctrine of the United Methodist Church, with which the college is affiliated.

But Simmons cited in his statement two other Methodist-affiliated schools that have similar programs: Wofford College in South Carolina and Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama.

Former U.S. Sen. John Culver and his wife, Mary Jane Checchi, threw their support behind the petition, sending a letter to the board that called on the school to return the $10,000 grant, which was used shortly after the group was founded to pay for clay pigeons and other startup equipment.

The former senator and father of former Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, both Democrats, helped found the John C. Culver Public Policy Center at the college, which has brought in political heavyweights such as David Axelrod and George McGovern to speak on campus.

Former U.S. Sen. John Culver

The couple's letter argues that groups such as the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the National Rifle Association are "strident, intolerant, highly political organizations" that promote clubs on college campuses, simply as part of an agenda to sell more guns.

There are likely prospective students and their families who would be "repelled" by the idea of an on-campus gun club, Culver and Checchi wrote in the letter.

"For Simpson to ally itself with — and to allow itself to be used by — such groups reflects poorly on Simpson and is sadly inconsistent with the college's mission and values," the letter reads. "This is doubly true in the context of recent, tragic mass shootings in our country. … Establishing a gun club with support from the NSSF makes a political statement, with the potential to draw Simpson into an acrimonious political debate."

Checchi said Monday that she and her husband will consider "next steps" but couldn't say whether the board's decision will affect their relationship with the school.

"Obviously our feelings about being associated with Simpson have been colored somewhat by the past week," Checchi said. "I think it's something John and I are going to talk about at length, obviously. It's very serious."

Both Checchi and Bentzinger have emphasized in interviews that they don't oppose Simpson students having an informal gun club that meets away from campus, but they would rather see the money for a shooting coach poured back into academic programs.

The club has grown to about 35 members since it was founded in 2011, and it holds practices through much of the school year at the Indianola chapter of the Izaak Walton League, college spokeswoman Jill Johnson told The Des Moines Register last week.

College administrators sought to hire a full-time coach for the club last year, partly in an effort to boost enrollment at the school of approximately 1,400 full-time students, Johnson said. An attractive recruiting pool of more than 3,000 Iowa high school students participated in shotgun shooting competitions through the state-administered Iowa Scholastic Clay Target program in 2015.

Any firearms owned by students who participate in the club are kept in a locked safe on campus that no students can access, Johnson said. Either Adam Brustkern, a chemistry professor who advises the club, or a member of the college's public safety department has to unlock the safe for a firearm to be checked out.

Brustkern said last week that he was confident the club had widespread support on campus. A petition in support of the club garnered more than 2,200 signatures by noon Monday — dwarfing the 188 signatures on the opposing petition.

The Iowa Firearms Coalition, an affiliate of the NRA, released a statement on its website portraying the board's decision as a Second Amendment win.

"Way to go Simpson College trustees, you made the right call siding with the constitutionally protected rights of your students," the statement said.

Mike Bazinet, public affairs director for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said trap shooting is an Olympic sport and that some college gun clubs date to America's colonial days.

He said opposition to Simpson's club came from people who wrongly conflate gun ownership and shooting sports with crime and mass shootings. Contact sports such as football pose more danger to college athletes than shotgun or rifle shooting, he said.

"The anti-gun organizations or individuals have decided what they need to do is stigmatize organizations, because that's a lot easier than criticizing safe activities," he said. "It is largely a politically driven argument."