Lehigh Football Nation
July 30th, 2005, 08:35 AM
If there was any doubt that fans, alumni and journalists are racheting up the heat on the Ivy presidents, these two articles should dispel your doubts.
My father gets the Dartmouth Alumni magazine, and although I can't access it online, an excerpt follows:
For a college that had just fired a loyal and likeable football coach and an athletic program that had already taken enough lumps, the story that appeared in the December 10th edition of the Valley News was a fresh bruise... It revealed the existence of a 4-year old letter, authored by the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid... printed on college stationary and addressed to Alfred Bloom, president of Swarthmore College.
In the now-notorious letter, the dean commended Bloom for dropping the school's football program. "Other institutions would do well to follow your lead... I, for one, support this change... football programs represent a sacrifice to the academic quality and diversity of entering first-year classes... football, and the culture that surrounds it, is antithetical to the academic mission of colleges such as ours... A close examination of intercollegiate athletics within the Ivy League would point to other sports in which the same phenomenon is apparent."
The article goes on to detail the strong alumni support for athletics and football in particular, and how athletes and former athletes banded together to reverse this sort of mentality. Alumni are actively trying to get involved to not only save athletics but to reverse this idiotic (and faulty) mentality. Time will tell if they're successful, but the fact that the alumni magazine are shedding a big ray of light on the letter and this internal stuggle was pretty telling to me.
Also out of Penn comes this article (http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug=uwire-commentarynonewsisbadnewsf&prov=uwire&type=lgns):
(U-WIRE) PHILADELPHIA -- Congratulations Amy Gutmann. You are now officially part of one of the most elite yet hypocritical organizations in college athletics -- the Council of Ivy Group Presidents.
Last Thursday, the eight Ivy League presidents had their annual meeting, where they discuss everything from federal research grants to budgetary issues.
But the real important reason these eight pillars of academia gather is to discuss and possibly alter athletic policy. After all, the Ivy League is, officially, an athletic conference.
The news coming out of Gutmann's office is ... well, there is no news. Penn's president, and every other Ivy president for that matter, has no comment on the meetings. Neither does Ivy League Executive Director Jeff Orleans, who is sometimes asked by the Council to make a statement about the meetings.
If the presidents are saying nothing, are we to assume that they accomplished nothing. This is a shame, because there are certainly archaic rules peculiar to the Ivy League that are worth debating.
Many have called on the Council to discuss partial scholarships for basketball players as the Patriot League has successfully tried. Others have asked them to add an 11th game to the football schedule, so that Ivy teams can find other Division I-AA opponents to scrimmage. And, of course, almost anyone familiar with Ivy League athletics has asked the Council to lift the league's ban on football postseason play.
These pleas have been stonewalled by the Ivy presidents, who continuously shirk public commentary on athletic policy.
For a group that speaks so often about the importance of academics, why are the Ivy presidents so afraid to publicly debate and defend their athletic policies? I'm no Ph.D., but isn't academia all about publishing your ideas and then having to defend them?
...
Each year, after the Ivy meetings, the Council should openly discuss what policies were debated and why a change was or was not made.
Right now, we are often just left with illogical statements. Such was the case when Rodin defended the football postseason ban, noting that it conflicted with finals. While this is true only if a team advanced deep into the playoffs, she would not give a rationale as to why other sports -- such as volleyball and soccer -- were allowed to play in NCAA Tournaments that also conflicted with finals.
On a rare occasion, an outgoing Ivy president will shed a glimmer of light on the Council's dark secrets. Princeton football coach Roger Hughes was once told by his then-outgoing President Harold Shapiro that there was no logical reason for the postseason ban. Former Brown President Gordon Gee once made a similar claim as he was leaving the school to become chancellor at Vanderbilt, noting that the existing rule was not in the spirit of equality and should be overturned.
But most of the time, we are just met with silence.
...
I don't happen to agree with some of the league's rules, but that's mostly because -- despite many attempts -- I've never had an Ivy League president who is willing to honestly explain his or her thinking to me.
It's quite possible that the Ivy League presidents have excellent rationales for their policies. Maybe the Council had a very insightful and intelligent debate on athletic policy as recently as last week's meeting.
I just wish they'd share it with the rest of us.
Pretty strong stuff! Maybe some minds may be changed by this stuff after all. Eight minds, to be exact.
My father gets the Dartmouth Alumni magazine, and although I can't access it online, an excerpt follows:
For a college that had just fired a loyal and likeable football coach and an athletic program that had already taken enough lumps, the story that appeared in the December 10th edition of the Valley News was a fresh bruise... It revealed the existence of a 4-year old letter, authored by the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid... printed on college stationary and addressed to Alfred Bloom, president of Swarthmore College.
In the now-notorious letter, the dean commended Bloom for dropping the school's football program. "Other institutions would do well to follow your lead... I, for one, support this change... football programs represent a sacrifice to the academic quality and diversity of entering first-year classes... football, and the culture that surrounds it, is antithetical to the academic mission of colleges such as ours... A close examination of intercollegiate athletics within the Ivy League would point to other sports in which the same phenomenon is apparent."
The article goes on to detail the strong alumni support for athletics and football in particular, and how athletes and former athletes banded together to reverse this sort of mentality. Alumni are actively trying to get involved to not only save athletics but to reverse this idiotic (and faulty) mentality. Time will tell if they're successful, but the fact that the alumni magazine are shedding a big ray of light on the letter and this internal stuggle was pretty telling to me.
Also out of Penn comes this article (http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug=uwire-commentarynonewsisbadnewsf&prov=uwire&type=lgns):
(U-WIRE) PHILADELPHIA -- Congratulations Amy Gutmann. You are now officially part of one of the most elite yet hypocritical organizations in college athletics -- the Council of Ivy Group Presidents.
Last Thursday, the eight Ivy League presidents had their annual meeting, where they discuss everything from federal research grants to budgetary issues.
But the real important reason these eight pillars of academia gather is to discuss and possibly alter athletic policy. After all, the Ivy League is, officially, an athletic conference.
The news coming out of Gutmann's office is ... well, there is no news. Penn's president, and every other Ivy president for that matter, has no comment on the meetings. Neither does Ivy League Executive Director Jeff Orleans, who is sometimes asked by the Council to make a statement about the meetings.
If the presidents are saying nothing, are we to assume that they accomplished nothing. This is a shame, because there are certainly archaic rules peculiar to the Ivy League that are worth debating.
Many have called on the Council to discuss partial scholarships for basketball players as the Patriot League has successfully tried. Others have asked them to add an 11th game to the football schedule, so that Ivy teams can find other Division I-AA opponents to scrimmage. And, of course, almost anyone familiar with Ivy League athletics has asked the Council to lift the league's ban on football postseason play.
These pleas have been stonewalled by the Ivy presidents, who continuously shirk public commentary on athletic policy.
For a group that speaks so often about the importance of academics, why are the Ivy presidents so afraid to publicly debate and defend their athletic policies? I'm no Ph.D., but isn't academia all about publishing your ideas and then having to defend them?
...
Each year, after the Ivy meetings, the Council should openly discuss what policies were debated and why a change was or was not made.
Right now, we are often just left with illogical statements. Such was the case when Rodin defended the football postseason ban, noting that it conflicted with finals. While this is true only if a team advanced deep into the playoffs, she would not give a rationale as to why other sports -- such as volleyball and soccer -- were allowed to play in NCAA Tournaments that also conflicted with finals.
On a rare occasion, an outgoing Ivy president will shed a glimmer of light on the Council's dark secrets. Princeton football coach Roger Hughes was once told by his then-outgoing President Harold Shapiro that there was no logical reason for the postseason ban. Former Brown President Gordon Gee once made a similar claim as he was leaving the school to become chancellor at Vanderbilt, noting that the existing rule was not in the spirit of equality and should be overturned.
But most of the time, we are just met with silence.
...
I don't happen to agree with some of the league's rules, but that's mostly because -- despite many attempts -- I've never had an Ivy League president who is willing to honestly explain his or her thinking to me.
It's quite possible that the Ivy League presidents have excellent rationales for their policies. Maybe the Council had a very insightful and intelligent debate on athletic policy as recently as last week's meeting.
I just wish they'd share it with the rest of us.
Pretty strong stuff! Maybe some minds may be changed by this stuff after all. Eight minds, to be exact.