← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

Professors Protest

From the Murray State University newspaper:

Murray State intercollegiate athletics expenses rose by $421,967 from 2008 to 2009 resulting in the highest amount in University history to $4.9 million.

On behalf of the [university Senate Finance] committee, which consists of six faculty members, [Winfield] Rose recommended to the Board of Regents “… we find the size of this subsidy and its growth inappropriate. … We further encourage the President and the Board of Regents to freeze the athletic subsidy at its present level immediately and to eliminate it totally over the next decade.”

… “We are under no illusion that what we have to say will be taken seriously by the Board or by the administration,” Rose said.

… The members of Faculty Senate who voted in favor of the Finance Committee’s recommendation believe there should be a cap on athletic spending.

“How far does it go in these tight financial times?” Rose said. “Does intercollegiate athletics have a virtual blank check on the University’s bank account?”…

Yes. It’s Kentucky, after all.

Margaret Soltan, April 16, 2010 11:39AM
Posted in: sport

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=22633

2 Responses to “Professors Protest”

  1. DM Says:

    Can somebody enlighten me why exactly do many American universities invest so much in sports? I’m told of highly paid coaches (much more paid than top-notch faculty), etc. What exactly is the driving force?

    For all the criticism this blog directs towards European universities (sometimes deservedly, sometimes undeservedly), this is I think a specifically American issue.

  2. Stephen Karlson Says:

    Positional arms races in tournament markets. In the case of the so-called revenue sports, make that positional arms races in two different tournament markets, where a good college coach might be able to obtain an offer from an aspiring professional team. I’m not familiar enough with intercollegiate competition in footie or cricket overseas to suggest that such crossover opportunities also exist there.

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories