The short answer: Get a president who doesn’t preside.
From an interview with the latest one on his way out the door.
On UK’s scandalous athletics culture:
I wish the country as a whole wasn’t as crazy as it is about athletics. It’s out of whack. But it’s a reality that you have to deal with in this position.
On the Wildcat Coal debacle:
Todd and the Board of Trustees received a lot of criticism for accepting $8 million from coal operators to build a new dormitory for the basketball team in return for naming it Wildcat Coal Lodge. Author Wendell Berry pulled his papers from UK, and others complained that the university is too beholden to an industry that denies climate change and resists calls to become more environmentally responsible.
If he had it to do over, would Todd handle Wildcat Coal Lodge differently?
“I tried to handle it differently,” he said. “We had some other suggested names. You have donors who … want to name it what they want to name it. They are good donors for us across the whole university and they are capable of giving more. We discussed other names, but when it came down to it, it was a decision to take the donation.
“I would be glad to build a Wildcat Green Lodge,” he added, if donors would give UK the money to pay for it.
Common thread? You can’t expect me to do anything! I’m only the president.
June 26th, 2011 at 11:31AM
“an industry that denies climate change”…that sounds an awful lot like an accusation of *heresy*. Whatever happened to all that academic belief in free, open debate?
If the coal companies involved in the donation were known for lax safety standards, etc, I could see the ethical problem, but not sure why the expression of a different view should create an issue.
“The university has no business promoting an industry that is under environmental siege,” said a professor quoted at the link. There is not an industry in the U.S., at least among those that deal in tangible things, that has not been or will be “under siege” from at least some environmental groups.
I totally agree that athletic programs at many universities are out of control and harmful. But excluding a donation because of the donor’s dissent from academic orthodoxy is a different issue.
Also–what actual benefit do the contributing coal companies think they’re going to get out of the money spent on this naming? Even for consumer products companies, I think it’s highly questionable whether the marketing benfits of stadium-naming are worth the costs, and for a coal company or an aggregate thereof, the idea seems ridiculous. Sounds to me more like some executive making a contribution based on their personal recreational interests rather than the best interests of their companies and shareholders.