You wouldn't think this is a period of good times for Duke Athletics. The department, like most across the nation, is working with declining revenues, additional NCAA obligations and the struggle to maintain an appropriate balance between academics and athletics.
But it is a time of success, Duke Athletics Director Kevin White told the Academic Council Thursday. Teams across the board are competing at high levels while the graduation rate for athletes continues to earn national acclaim.
And, White said, while the department still depends on a $14 million university subsidy, its $60 million budget is balanced. Additional revenue sources are promising, particularly through an invigorated football program, and White said the goal is to reduce the department's dependency on the university subsidy.
White said revenues are down between 7 and 8 percent from last year, but cost containment has cut expenditures by more than 5 percent.
"We're continuing to monitor our financial position," White said. "We're doing things such as reducing travel party sizes that are making a difference."
He added that the department is being conservative about its facilities expenditures and is focusing on comparatively small projects to upgrade the football practice space and improve the football field house and intramural areas.
The timing of the talk was fortuitous because the day before the NCAA announced Duke's graduation rate for athletes was 97 percent, one of the highest rates in the country. Fifteen teams achieved a 100 percent graduation rate.
White said that shared commitment to academics and athletics is one of the best selling points for Duke Athletics. And the most demanding consumers, he said, were the student-athletes themselves.
"I think at Duke we have a great history of keeping the right balance [between athletics and academics]," White said. "My job is to maintain that. The people who hold us the most to that standard are the student-athletes. That's why they make a decision to come to Duke. They are savvy consumers. They make a decision to come to a place that is a world-class institution where they can compete in intercollegiate athletics at a high level."
In addition to financial challenges, White said the program is always alert to issues of NCAA compliance, which is a complicated business that can easily go wrong. "You can take 75 years of building up an institutional image, and all that can change in eight seconds," he said.
Academic Council Chair Craig Henriquez introduced White by noting he has a Ph.D. in education and is living on campus as an East Campus faculty-in-residence.
"I have seen significant changes in relations between athletics and academics these past few years," Henriquez said. "Kevin has overseen a lot of those changes."