Washington, D.C.
In response to the recently released Knight Foundation survey showing that higher education faculty care little about college athletics, a group of nationally recognized experts meeting here urged them to rethink their attitudes and lack of involvement.
The gathering, the Faculty Summit on Intercollegiate Athletics, brought together leading faculty governance leaders from across the nation to interpret and explain the survey’s surprising results.
The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics commissioned the survey. Among the survey’s findings was the feeling among faculty that athletic decisions on campus are being driven by the demands of the entertainment industry and that they were dissatisfied with their roles in athletics governance.
“We shouldn’t have any illusions about the ability of faculty to significantly change what is going on today,” said Gary Roberts, dean of Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis. A former director of the sports law program and faculty athletic representative at Tulane University, Roberts’ assessment of the futility of the situation stood in stark contrast to other panelists who, while acknowledging serious structural problems, believed that well-conceived efforts could change things.
“I do believe that we’ve got a lot of evidence that change can come about and that faculty do care about these issues,” said Dr. Carol Simpson Stern, a past president of the American Association of University Professors.
She recalled that when the subject of new approaches and reform to college athletics was included on the agenda at an AAUP national meeting the room was so overcrowded that attendees had to stand in the hallway. Unless faculty get involved and not entirely capitulate, the entire university could suffer irreparable harm to its academic reputation. This was a common theme heard from attendees and panelists during the session. In the search for such new and imaginative thinking, Stern, a professor of performance studies at Northwestern University, along with University of South Carolina-Columbia Provost Mark Becker, drew a strong reaction from the audience when they suggested that a dialogue about offering a major in “sports performance” should at least be considered.
