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 | Reclaiming the Game: |
Press Release Contact: Jill Danzig, Rentsch Associates
NEW YORK, NY. September 16, 2003: In no other country is athletics so embedded within the institutional structure of higher education as in the United States, but this close relationship bears a cost. A new book released today reveals a rapidly widening divide in our elite colleges and universities between intercollegiate athletics and the academic missions of such institutions. Based upon the authors' extensive empirical research, the book demonstrates a significant admissions advantage for athletes whose names appear on coaches' recruitment lists, consistent underperformance by such athletes in the classroom and, in many cases, patterns of social behavior that set them apart from their fellow students. These factors, the book says, threaten the very core of the educational missions of academically selective schools. Furthermore, our elite universities have an obligation to ascertain the facts and describe their athletic programs accurately as a critical first step toward constructive change. RECLAIMING THE GAME: COLLEGE SPORTS AND EDUCATIONAL VALUES (Princeton University Press, 9/16/03, $27.95), by William G. Bowen, President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Sarah A. Levin, presents an eye-opening look at how America's selective schools admit athletes, how those athletes perform in the classroom, the role of coaches and athletic conferences, and the impact these factors have on those colleges and universities. Over the last decade, the public has become well aware of the issues of commercialization, low graduation rates, and disrespect for academic values faced by schools with big-time sports programs. Yet few have recognized the need to address the growing problems at more academically rigorous schools where athletic scholarships are not offered. A variety of factors have combined to discourage reform, among them: opposition from some trustees and financial contributors, fierce competition among the schools, confusion about the true role of athletic recruitment in the admissions process and on campus, inertia, and-until now-lack of data about the nature and extent of the problems. In RECLAIMING THE GAME, Bowen and Levin disentangle the admissions and academic experiences of recruited athletes, walk-on athletes, and other students at these schools, shedding light on the forces that have been driving this process. Based on extensive new data, the book reveals startling - and sobering - findings:
"The challenge is to strengthen, not weaken, the contribution athletics makes to the overall educational experience of students and the sense of 'community' that college sports can engender," say Bowen and Levin. The authors emphasize the positive contribution of intercollegiate sports to college life and the need not to demonize student athletes, "who have done nothing wrong" for having followed society's signals. In their view, "attention should be focused on the underlying forces and on the relevant policies, not on the particular individuals caught up in a process not of their own making." To that end the authors offer a number of recommendations for reform to "reclaim the game" at the institutional, conference, and national level. These include:
The authors also suggest the need for a new national-level organization of Division III institutions, preferably operating within the NCAA, with membership based on a commitment to an athletic program well-balanced with educational values. In 2001, Bowen and James L. Shulman published a highly influential and ground-breaking study, The Game of Life, an investigation of the special role college athletics plays in shaping admission policies, student performance, campus life and culture in a wide-range of large and small public and private universities and colleges. Hailed as "one of the most important books on higher education published in the last 20 years" by The New Yorker, it was also praised by The New York Times as "a provocative and important new book," and by The Wall Street Journal as "a landmark study." For RECLAIMING THE GAME, the authors built upon the extensive "College and Beyond" database used in The Game of Life and, before it, The Shape of the River, the comprehensive study of affirmative action that Mr. Bowen co-authored with Derek Bok. The expanded database used in this study includes 28,000 students entering college in the fall of 1995 (a cohort the authors followed for five years) at 33 schools where admissions are highly competitive and athletic scholarships are not awarded. In addition, data were collected from over 132,000 students applying to college in 1999. Among the institutions studied were the eight Ivy League universities, the eleven members of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), four of the eight members of the University Athletic Association (UAA), and a number of leading women's and co-ed liberal arts colleges around the country. File created: 1/29/2008 | |
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