The lady doth protest too much

If there is malfeasance and corruption in the cases cited, much of the blame lies elsewhere. At Duke, the district attorney appears oblivious to the public facts yet determined to prosecute in light of contradictory evidence. At Auburn, the faculty tendency to award cheap independent studies is not restricted to athletes. And when the president of Penn hosts a party and poses with a “suicide bomber,” well you just have to question her judgment as an academic — this is “free speech"? Sure, big-time college athletics is the tail often wagging the university dog, but the faculty warched the dog be fed and live off the earnings of those athletic programs that are successful. And there is enough academic malfeasance to attend to first. Like cancelling classes Thanksgiving week, not requiring final exams, declining to teach 8:00 a.m. classes, fueling rampant grade inflation in the race for popular course ratings, offering little or nothing of substance in many classes and offering classes with little or no academic merit in the first place. Teacher heal thyself.

Oakfarm, at 8:45 am EST on November 8, 2006

The elephant in the room

This article is ridiculous. It ignores the obvious.

There is a very simple reason why faculty don’t get involved in attempting to control athletics at universities with big-time sports programs: They know full well that nothing they could do could possibly have a significant effect.

math prof, at 8:46 am EST on November 8, 2006

integrity

Even if protesting and resisting does “no good,” one should do so anyway. Integrity. You do the right thing whether or not anyone is looking, ridiculing, or congratulating you.

JEN, at 9:35 am EST on November 8, 2006

“Self-serving spinelessness”

Soltan is right on target, and “math prof” and “another nasty professor” are perfect examples of the problem. In The Shadow University Kors and Silverglate correctly identified what’s wrong with universities in this Baby Boomer faculty era: “self-serving spinelessness, not ideology” is the cause of the crisis in higher education.

Fed up with lazy profs, at 10:01 am EST on November 8, 2006

Institutions rarely change from the efforts of the people inside it and in the middle. They change either from determination at the top or irresistible pressure from the outside. The irresistible pressure will come when college students and their parents realize that the education they stand to get from a college with commercialized athletics isn’t worth half what it costs.

Jack Olson, at 11:06 am EST on November 8, 2006

Practical suggestions?

At the last institution I worked at, faculty had protested against the football program in many ways, and we also spoke individually to the people in charge of the athlete’s coursework about the problems those students faced in the classroom, which were in some cases signficant, as some student athletes were obviously unprepared for college and would not have been admitted on their academic qualifications. Their time away for games and the time at practice further hurt those student athletes who were weak to begin with (although many of course did fine). One footballer in my class, when the season ended, told me, “I feel like I’ve been let out of jail.” Faculty members also did the math and showed the board that the football program was a financial sink, not a money-maker; and there were alumnae/i surveys that showed that the alumnae/i did not link their contributions to the football team. But all that did no good at all. And I don’t think quitting our jobs would have helped; it’s a buyer’s market, and the university would have just replaced us all with underpaid adjuncts with even less clout. Does Ms. Righteousness have some practical suggestions about how to change the situation? If Congress really takes away the tax-exempt status of college sports that can’t justify the educational merit of the games themselves, that would be a step in the right direction.

Sarah Schneewind, at 11:50 am EST on November 8, 2006

re: Faculty and Football

I have to agree with the respondents who write that the question is not so much why faculty ignore the problems of athletic programs, as why their concerns are ignored. The problem, as several have pointed out, is that too often, the administration simply ignores faculty concerns. At my own institution, our president announced in the press that he was going to “do what it takes” to ensure that the new football coach got a 3/4 million dollar base salary, and that all the assistant coaches would immediately get fifty percent raises (this in a year when faculty got a 3% raise). But no amount of letters or reasoned objections made the slightest difference. Nor did the recent articles on how football programs habitually inflate their attendance numbers. The problem, in other words, is not that faculty do not care, but that too often, they have absolutely no leverage over the people who make these decisions. Certainly, that’s the case at San Diego State University.

Peter C. Herman, Prof. at San Diego State University, at 2:25 pm EST on November 8, 2006

“Science Prof” suggests that some people aren’t signing their name because of fear of the sports establishment. Give me tenure and I’ll be glad to sign my name. From the point of view of untenured junior faculty, the object of fear is not the sports establishment but rather spineless senior faculty who don’t like to have their moral cowardice exposed. They are far more petty and vindictive than any sports director.

Herman writes: “But no amount of letters or reasoned objections made the slightest difference.” Here is where the faculty seem to remain perpetually clueless. Eliminating sports corruption has nothing to do with “reasoned objections” and letters to trustees. The *only* tools that will ever have the slightest effect are public exposure and embarrassment in the media: print, television, radio. blogs, etc. (Which is the reason Soltan has become an important figure.) Relentless public embarrassment, public naming of incompetent and corrupt trustees, lawsuits, and especially some market pressure that loudly identifies certain universities as “Schools to avoid if you want to get educational value for your dollar and avoid corruption” — those are the tools that need to be applied.

Fed up with lazy profs, at 3:55 pm EST on November 8, 2006

So what else is new?

About 35 years ago, my dad went to a local school-board meeting held in the barren library of our high school. As the school board laid plans to re-sod the football field, Dad looked around at the empty bookshelves. He asked if maybe the school board should consider spending some money on, say, books for the kids to read. He was told to shut up and hit the road. The field got new sod.

For a hell of a lot of people, sport, and particularly football, is the entire reason for having schools. For these folk, the problem is never whether sports interfere with education, but whether that stupid academic crap interferes with the serious business of football.

Where I live, some high schools have football stadiums. Not just nice fields—stadiums. This past weekend, three days before Election Day, high school football crowded politics off the front page of the local newspaper. I teach and have taught high school, community college, and university students, and I can assure you that many of them pick colleges because they want to cheer for certain teams. Giving football players special treatment makes perfect sense to people in these parts, because football players are special, superior people.

One’s football allegiance is a big, big part of one’s identity around here, and team allegiance is not limited to alumni. Thousands of people who have never spent a minute in a college classroom drive vehicles plastered with stickers announcing the owners’ loyalty to Big Football U.

College sports will not change. Too many students, alumni, administrators, parents, and local communities seem to like things just the way they are.

Bill Melater, at 6:25 pm EST on November 8, 2006

I cannot speak about other programs — I only know about Purdue. Here, intercollegiate athletics is self-supporting, with the major sports providing funding for others that do not bring in sufficient (or any) income. There is a strong emphasis on academics for all athletes. The graduation rate for athletes is higher than that for the university as a whole. Names of those who have above a 3.0 or 3.5 average are posted in the hallways, and there are quite a few — from all teams.

Yes, we have students who would not have made it to college were it not for football or basketball — not because they do not have the ability, but they may not have had the same opportunities or preparation or the wherewithal. But I do not see how it is a bad thing to enable a student to aquire a college education when he or she would not have been able to otherwise.

Tricia Sembroski, at 8:20 pm EST on November 8, 2006

Interesting comments

First off I enjoyed reading Soltan’s article very much and I am not afraid to speak out—nor should any faculty member. As a person who has been on all sides of the issue (athlete, Division I coach, Division I administrator, Higher Ed staff, and now tenure track faculty) there is nothing that surprises me—I thought.

The comments on here range from thought provoking to laughable. Faculty can fix this problem—but we do not want to. Jon Ericson is right on target lazy prof about disclosure. The slack you speak of will be exposed. Anyone who thinks that the Auburn situation was not covertly in place for atheltes is dreaming. And Tricia—you have fallen for the biggest lie of all—"the only way certain populations can get to college is by athletics.” This plays well as spin BUT Nothing could be further from the truth—yet that is what we are saying and it is being communicated to generations of lower socio economic and minority populations—instead of education athletics is the “only way out.". Anyone can go to college in America if they want to. As faculty we have a responsibility to provide higher education—not a watered down experience to support something that does not provide revenue, quality applications, fund raising, profile, or ACADEMIC INTEGRITY (all confirmed by empirical research).

Bottom line let’s have college students, real college students play college sports.I have seen the seamy underside up close. I know what goes on—because I did it. I have realized the error of my ways. I believed the spin and rationalized that there was no hope for many of these athletes, and all I did was perpetuate mediocrity and academic fraud.

I would love to see a full disclosure on Purdue athletics to determine that in spite of higher GPA’s and grad rates when compared to the student body (given the assistance and coddling most D-I athletes get it should be exhorbantly higher) is it a real education?? Or are a disproportinate amount of athletes in jock curriculums, having tutors do the work, getting breaks by faculty, given independant studies etc. etc. just to perpetuate the fraud?? I seriously doubt Purdue is leading the way as some bastion of academic integrity. I could be wrong—but I doubt it. Just to be sure, let’s have them volunteer to disclose everything so we can see.

That folks is not education—its exploitation. Saying that just being on a college campus is better than nothing is a cop out unless they are getting the education they are supposed to get at an institution of higher learning. Wake up folks!!

There is an opening with Congress for change and for a plan to fix the problems please visit www.thedrakegroup.org

B. David Ridpath, Asst Professor at Ohio University, at 6:20 am EST on November 9, 2006

OK for now at Purdue...sort of...

Tricia is right about the fiscal independence of the Purdue athletic department, with the marquee sports subsidizing the smaller ones, and the John Purdue Club members funding athletic scholarships. I am struck though by a reminder of the athletic arms race every day on my drive in to the university. There looms the large, expensively refurbished and expanded football stadium. How often is this enormous, posh edifice used, you ask, dear reader? Well, 5-6 times A YEAR. Not even for commencement. It sits, empty, days, weeks, months on end. And I am one who is quickened by a touchdown pass or a well-executed option play. I guess I am asking what kind of people are we to build such monuments? Who are those people who roll up to Ross Ade Stadium or nearby Slayter Hill a night or so in advance in an RV, who then spend 2 days or moreat the university for this spectacle?

I increasingly don’t get it. But I will watch the team a bit on the tube, listen on headphones, or cock an ear to the seemingly endless banter of ESPN’s Sportscenter. But even with that modest investment and some passing pleasure, I have some doubts about *what* it is that I get out of it.

A. G. Rud, Purdue University, at 6:35 am EST on November 9, 2006

Athletics – big time college athletics, intramurals, non-revenue generating sports – are part of university life. They are because they are popular, the build communities, they allow for release, they encourage socialization, they stir our passions, and they are (gasp) fun. People jostle one another, old and young interact in strange bacchanal rites, drink too much, puke, get mocked, get excited, cheer, abuse each other, cry, and stand in awe at college athletic events. College athletics are unique and distinct experiences and saying that the cost too much, detract from real learning (the classroom kind?), and are corrupt (ahhhh, yes corruption … very bad, very bad indeed).

Universities have changed since the “olden times” when students walked two miles, up hill in the snow while reading Plato each day. Universities have a much broader function in the life of our youth (as more and more go to universities), in their communities (especially public ones, but private ones as well), and in society more broadly, and college athletics plays a vital part in this. Perhaps in some halcyon dream the rich, white boys of the old “Pistol and Dagger” Club would get together to play whist, but guess what? The University isn’t that any more. It’s not exclusively about elite intellectuals, it’s not exclusively about “developing the character of future leaders”, and its not exclusively about the rational and civil exchange of ideas. The university has growed up! It has democratized. It caters people who want to escape on weekends, who can see their life spent in cubicles or in the “blog-o-sphere”, who feel alienated and alone in an atomized world, and they are afraid of that. The anecdote for this can be found crisp fall air, the crunch of beer cans under their feet, the gritty humanity of experiencing 100, 80, 60,000 like minded individuals releasing tensions and sharing hopes.

In the end, go on fight the battles (but in a more articulate, more intellectually challenging way… please!); after all they are there to be fought, but try to think beyond the parochialism of the seminar room or lecture hall. Try to think, just for a moment, of all those “ordinary” (albeit clearly intellectually inferior, corrupt, and weak) people who support university athletics, whose memories of college center on the playing fields as fans or athletes and the solidarity and community that these experiences formed. And think, why don’t they remember their classes (oh, it must be that new devil alcohol…)? Why didn’t they find the same sense of community among their peers in intellectual pursuits?

The Gamer, at 9:15 am EST on November 9, 2006

Follow the money

Oregon State University has developed a pioneering open-access accounting system that, if adopted as a national standard, would go a long way toward exposing and eliminating financial corruption in college sports. I have not yet seen any news reports on this development, but I attended a presentation about it this past summer called “How to engage 30,000 people in university finances.” From any on-campus computer at OSU you can look up all university financial transactions down to the paper clip level, see who has how much money, and what they are spending it on. State governments across the country should mandate this sort of openness at every public university.

R.J. O’Hara, at 11:30 am EST on November 9, 2006

Now for more transparency

I like the OSU financial transparency idea. Now we need to move it to disclosure.

Gamer—I am not sure what to think, but surely you jest when you say that we are not presenting articulate and intellectual viewpoints. The model needs to be changed—and in fact in can be changed. More than that, it MUST be changed.

Yes there are problems all over our campuses—but do we do nothing about them. This is an area I worked in, know about, research, and believe can be changed for the better thus strengthening academic integrity for the entire institution. This is the battle I chose to fight. It doesn’t make other problems less or more—however those problems may be part of a solution too.

B. David Ridpath, Asst. Prof at Ohio University, at 4:00 pm EST on November 9, 2006

Let’s examine the NCAA’s Constitution

(Note: All quotes have been taken from the NCAA Division I Manual. I have capitalized certain words and phrases for emphasis.)

Consider, if you will, the NCAA’s fundamental policy:

“The purpose of the Association is that intercollegiate athletics (hereinafter, IA) should promote athletic participation as a...RECREATIONAL PURSUIT.”

It’s basis purpose is:

“..To maintain IA as an INTEGRAL part of the EDUCATIONAL system..and by doing so, RETAIN A CLEAR LINE OF DEMARCATION b/w IA and PROFESSIONAL sports.”

The principle of amateurism reads:

“Student-athletes shall be AMATEURS..their participation should be PRIMARILY motivated by EDUCATION...participation in IA is an AVOCATION and student-athletes should be PROTECTED FROM EXPLOITATION BY PROFESSIONAL AND COMMERICAL ENTERPRISES.”

Finally, (and I could go on indefinitely), its principle governing post-season competition states:

“The conditions of the post-season should be controlled to...prevent UNJUSTIFIED INTRUSION ON THE TIME student-athletes devote to their ACADEMIC programs, and to protect athletes from EXPLOITATION BY PROFESSIONAL AND COMMERICAL ENTERPRISES.”

Concerning the NCAA’s Constitution, there exists a fundamental hypocrisy (a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not actually possess).

The NCAA’s may want to revisit its constitution and consider revising it to more accurately depict itself….perhaps something along the lines of —-a capitalist association in which the bourgeois (NCAA) exploit the proletariat (athletes).

Kadie Otto, Ph. D., Director, Sport Management Program at Western Carolina University, at 7:25 pm EST on November 9, 2006

sports fans and death threats

Why isn’t Soltan addressing her complaints to the legislators, trustees, and regents who can actually effect serious reform in academic programs? Or, if she must blame the faculty, why doesn’t she at least suggest tangible ways that professors could help bring about such reform?

Another fairly obvious point that Soltan ignores in this piece: perhaps one reason many profs don’t speak out aganst these abuses is that doing so can make one deeply, even violently unpopular among the student body (and perhaps among colleagues and the administration as well). The day that Miles Brand fired Bobby Knight as Indiana’s basketball coach, campus police had to escort Brand off campus out of fear of the rioting crowds of students roaming campus. Earlier, when Murray Sperber, an English professor at IU, wrote an article condemning the kinds of outrages Soltan is pointing to here, he received dozens of death threats, and had to take a year’s leave from his teaching duties. When promotion, tenure, and merit pay decisions rest in part on teaching evaluations, why invite that kind of grief for something that faculty have little control over in the first place?

Shane in Utah, at 6:10 pm EST on November 11, 2006

And a good debate is defined by?

Ms. Soltan’s argument is rational until her opinion mirrors some-type of internal agenda. A professor’s function within the corporate matrix of any university or college is to teach. Withholding personal opinion such as appearing to remain silent when various programs are not functioning at optimum performance is a wise choice for several reasons. The first, professors are there to teach not preach. Although, the majority demonstrate making good, solid moral judgements without deviating from their task at hand Teaching. Secondly, live by example for the few that do not, justice is already served. However, to accuse the majority only brings out the worst in people; making change quite difficult if not impossible. I thought articles like this would stimulate a scholarly debate based on the infusion of crtitical thinking not a knock-out-drag-out fight.People! get a grip on exchanging ideas that will ultimately enhance, empower and motivate the students that read these articles in order for them to maturate and perform at optimum level.

Alex deJesus

Alexandria deJesus, at 7:00 pm EST on November 13, 2006