We’ll see more and more of these professor-confessionals.
For 33 years, I taught classes at the University of Missouri’s main campus in Columbia. Every year, I felt my indignation kick in as students, fellow faculty, administrators, staff, alumni and townspeople with no direct connection to MU seemed to show more concern about the football and basketball teams than about teaching and research.
Tell it!
[B]ig-time athletics damage morale of faculty and staff, who see stratospheric football and basketball coaches’ salaries as everybody else swallows reductions. Athletic programs sometimes increase budget deficits rather than earn money for the campuses.
Yes!
So, I will continue my tiny protest by boycotting MU football and basketball games and occasionally speaking out. Many of my colleagues and friends will make fun of me, as they always have, and I will probably die without seeing even a bit of meaningful reform.
February 27th, 2011 at 8:56PM
My experience of MU is merely that of someone who was there on summertime fellowship, off-season, but I am sure that the writer nails it.
In 18 years at my last university, I never attended a single athletic contest.
On the other hand, starting out as an adjunct professor, I made a point of never attending commencement either, since I was not paid to do so, a habit that carried over after I went full-time.
Little protests, unnoticed.
February 28th, 2011 at 7:48AM
Two suggested edits:
Athletic programs
sometimesnearly always increase budget deficits rather than earn money for the campuses.I will
probablydefinitely die and my fossilized bones will join those of trilobites and tyrannosaurs in some museum in the distant future without seeing even a bit of meaningful reform.February 28th, 2011 at 8:36AM
That does jazz it up, tp.