The University Senate approved a resolution at its Wednesday meeting to join the Coalition On Intercollegiate Athletics, a national organization seeking to give college faculty a greater voice in the national debate on athletics reform. The Senate also endorsed COIA’s “Framework for Comprehensive Athletic Reform.”
“There is a national consensus that something has gone wrong in intercollegiate athletics in the past decade,” English Professor James Earl said. “We’re launching a national dialogue.”
The resolution does nothing to change the practices of the University’s athletics department, which is self-sufficient, but it voices faculty support for athletic reform. Faculty of athletics powerhouses such as the University of Michigan and Duke University have already joined COIA.
Earl said the resolution was not an attempt to limit college athletics, but rather an expression of “continuing support for the healthy reform of intercollegiate athletics.”
The COIA framework urges a stronger focus on academics, limits on athletics budgets and shorter athletics seasons. It also urges colleges to ease off-campus recruiting and to better integrate athletes into campus life.
Earl emphasized that the resolution in no way implies a criticism of the University’s athletics practices, which he called “exemplary.”
COIA, which was formed by faculty at 12 schools from six athletic conferences, is attacking athletics reform with a comprehensive approach and has gained encouragement from NCAA President Miles Brand and even athletics directors, Earl said.
“(Athletics directors) are as eager as everyone else to put some limit on commercialization,” he said.
Consternation emerged at the meeting regarding specifics of COIA’s framework, which the University Intercollegiate Athletic Committee opposed endorsing.
Journalism Assistant Professor Kim Sheehan said that while IAC supports a greater voice for faculty in intercollegiate athletics, there is a “lack of really understanding what in the long-term the framework will do.”
She said the framework includes “tactics that would be impossible to implement, (that are) in violation of current NCAA regulations and would be unfair to schools on the quarter system.”
“The basic goals here are very, very good,” IAC Chairman and mathematics Professor Brad Shelton said. It’s the specific things in there that make us want to back off.”
Earl said the framework would not tie the University’s hands.
“There is nothing in the resolution obligatory to the University,” he said. “This adoption of this framework does not oblige us to do anything.”
A University volleyball player said the notion that college athletes are exploited is overblown.
“We don’t feel like we’re being exploited,” junior Lauren Westendorf said. “We couldn’t be happier with the experience that we’re having.”
Mathematics Assistant Professor Dev Sinha argued that the resolution won’t necessarily change University practices.
“There should be tangible outcomes,” he said.
University President Dave Frohnmayer opened the meeting with an address to the Senate in which he announced that Measure 30’s failure will have consequences less dire to the University than originally anticipated. He said the University will have to cut only $881,000 rather than $2.5 million.
The Senate also passed a resolution urging changes to the Student Records Policy. The changes would require Melinda Grier, general counsel to the University, to determine that a subpoena is valid before releasing student records and require the University to better educate faculty on the records policy.