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Athletics strategic plan: Faculty council shares goals but expresses concern

After three months of discussion about the new athletics strategic plan, Duke's faculty governance body Thursday supported the plan's broad goals and commended the Athletics Department for working with the wider Duke community to develop it, but stopped short of formally endorsing it. 

 

While sharing the plan's goals for combining athletic excellence with the academic mission of the university, some Academic Council members raised concerns both Thursday and at previous council meetings about whether the plan would commit Duke to an "arms race" of greater expenditures on facilities and coaches salaries.

The plan, which was approved Saturday by the Board of Trustees, would increase the university subsidy for athletics, improve athletic facilities at all levels of competition, create a university endowment for athletics and focus on improving the competitiveness of the football team (Click here for story).

 

The resolution passed by the faculty council calls upon Duke to take a leadership role in reforming college athletics at a national level. (Click here for the full text of the resolution.)

 

"We charge the Duke University administration to play a leadership role, within our conference and in the NCAA, in setting standards for collegiate athletics that include strict controls on time and travel demands made upon student athletes, on admission exceptions, and on athletic spending," the resolution said.

 

Council members said the resolution reflects an understanding of the important role that athletics play in the Duke educational experience and the great success Duke athletes have had in the classroom as well as on the playing fields.

But it also reflects some faculty members' concerns that the plan sends Duke athletics in a difficult direction at a time when the costs of supporting college athletics nationally, especially for football and basketball, are increasing at rates that they feel Duke will be hard-pressed to match.

 

Faculty members also questioned athletics officials about the time commitments being placed on athletes, the perceived isolation of athletes from other students on campus and whether a renewed focus on football will require eased admissions standards.

 

"The NCAA is fundamentally a screwed-up and hypocritical organization," said cultural anthropology professor Orin Starn at an April 17 council meeting. "We need to show some leadership in terms of reforming and addressing some of the messed-up things that are going on in this system. My fear is that we seem [with this plan] to want to just keep going along with the current system without challenging the whole premise of sports and its place in our university."

Thursday's discussion started off with Duke political scientist and chair of the Athletic Council Michael Gillespie addressing faculty concerns. He noted that no university -- with the possible exception of Stanford -- can match Duke's accomplishments in combining championship sports with classroom excellence.

He said athletics has become an important part of Duke's academic niche, which has been valuable in recruiting top students and raising money for -- among other important needs -- financial aid. Some prospective students may turn away from Duke because of the role of athletics here, he said, but the evidence is many more select the university in part because of it.

"Athletics is crucial to Duke's success in attracting top students," Gillespie said. "It allows us to compete with institutions that are older and wealthier than us. We can't ignore the factors that have made us so successful in the academic marketplace."

Duke athletics cost the university about $7.5 million more a year than they produce in revenue, a smaller subsidy than most other universities, he said, because the success of the basketball team and some other sports.

 

"Athletics has to be as inexpensive as possible," he said. "Some suggest that we move down to Division II sports and de-emphasize athletics. This in fact would be a very expensive proposition because it would mean leaving the ACC and losing most of our athletic revenue."

But Gillespie and interim Athletics Director Chris Kennedy said they understood concerns raised by some faculty members. Financially, the department is "overdependent" upon basketball's success Gillespie told faculty members, which is one reason why it aims to boost support for football. And while the plan calls for an increased university subsidy in the short term, in the long term the only solution, they said, is for athletics to raise more endowment to allow it to reduce and eventually eliminate the subsidy.

Gillespie said athletics officials are also looking for ways to further improve the educational experience for athletes, but said they need help from faculty and administrators.

Currently few athletes can major in the sciences because the high number of afternoon labs in these fields conflict with practice times, he said. Likewise, athletes are more likely to select 8:30 a.m. classes whereas departments often prefer to schedule their required courses later when they can attract greater enrollments.

Duke officials said they would take seriously the council's call for national athletics. Provost Peter Lange Thursday said one area of concern he wanted the NCAA to address is the growing trend of high school athletes to make college commitments at a younger age, some even after the eighth grade.

"If NCAA would do something constructive, it would be to seek to restrict sharply that element of recruitment," Lange said. "The notion that you can make a firm selection in your sophomore or early junior year is a mistake. This has come up repeatedly with our coaches."