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Haagen Explains Faculty Athletics Associates Program

Plan aims to bridge divisions between athletics and academics

In the wake of the lacrosse case, Duke is looking at a number of ways to reduce a perceived disconnect between athletics and academics. Academic Council Chair Paul Haagen has floated a proposal to connect a faculty member to each team to improve communication between athletics and academics

Amid debate among faculty over the proposal, Haagen, a professor of law, defended the planned Faculty Athletics Associates Program at Thursday's Academic Council meeting as something that would be valuable to the faculty, to athletics and to the university.

"Duke invests substantial resources in intercollegiate athletics," Haagen said. "For most faculty, what happens on those teams is a mystery. The coaches speak of themselves as teachers and educators, but the form of teaching and education is quite different from the teaching and education on the rest of the campus. I understood this as an opportunity for faculty to find out what that activity is.

The proposal would give faculty members unprecedented access to athletic teams, including meetings, practice sessions and occasional trips to away games. An anonymous faculty member, one of several to criticize the proposal, has circulated a parody of the plan that invites athletic coaches to link themselves to academic departments.

The program has been approved by the Executive Committee of the Academic Council, and Thursday's session was for information purposes only.

"Some people have suggested that this is an attempt to build support for athletics, and are fearful that it will just be an opportunity for the Athletic Department to co-opt individual members of the faculty," Haagen said. "The Athletic Department administration clearly hopes that if faculty know more about what it is that they do, they will be supportive. They are confident enough that they are prepared to give access, and to permit that access on terms that they do not control.

"I think that it is good that they have such confidence, but I don't make any such assumption about what familiarity will breed. Our assumption is that the faculty will observe, interact and reach their own conclusions. Given the nature of faculty, I think it inevitable that at least some will conclude, after seeing Division IA athletics up close, that they like it even less than they thought they would. Others will in all probability find features or aspects of the experience that are more positive than they had imagined."

Haagen said he's received about 80 responses from faculty members interested in volunteering; most are men. No assignments have been made.

Haagen said he got the idea after learning about similar programs at Princeton and other universities. He didn't like all aspects of the other programs. At Princeton, the athletes selected their favorite professors to assist them; att other universities, the faculty serve as mentors or ambassadors for the team.

Haagen's proposal for Duke would limit each faculty member's link to a team to less than three years.

"In the announcement that ECAC sent out, we stated that we hoped this program would increase faculty understanding of athletics," Haagen said. "Some people have suggested that there was an implied suggestion that athletics, and athletes, were -- like the Jets in West Side Story -- misunderstood. No such implied suggestion was intended. Rather what was intended was that the faculty would gain access that would give them a level of understanding not available without that access."

The program would be an experiment and faculty are still working on details for providing feedback from participants and for how to review the success of the program, Haagen said.

President Richard H. Brodhead said he supported anything that brought academics and athletics together, adding that athletics director Joe Alleva now sits in a leadership meeting in the provost's office to ensure better exchange of information.

"A division between athletics and academics is not something we want," Brodhead said. "In fact it is something we can not tolerate."