Monday, March 8, 2010
The Debate
The debate that I've identified is the one between athletics and academics and the battle for power, money, and respect. Academics want to be the premier point of interest at the university, while athletics are trying to play a major part of the school's identity: in some cases, the entire identity. The two sides battle over the power held at the school which they believe leads to certain benefits in most cases. Receiving money from donors and budgeting the money the school has in an effective way is something that both sides are in dispute about. Getting more money than the other side is obviously one of the main goals in this battle, but money is not the only thing that the sides are feuding between. Having an influence in the school is important because this brings about the money and can sway the focus of the school's higher ups. This can lead to increased power and influence. So in turn its a cycle and many of these things feed off of each other. Academics feel that they are the most important part of a university and that that is the reason that people go to college. Sports are something that should not be competing with academics in a university and should take a back seat to academics or even be gotten rid of all together. The two sides focus on different aspects of the argument but they basically disagree about the same issues and could argue with each other over the same issues because they compete for the most part over the same things.
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I do not think the way you are framing the debate is so useful. After all, you make it seem that athletics and academics have an equal claim on the mission of the University -- as though Universities have an equal obligation to provide sporting entertainment to their stakeholders AND to educate students -- or even that educating students could always take a backseat to entertaining people with college sports....
ReplyDeletePart of the problem is that you are thinking of debate as between different stakeholders. While these stakeholders have conflicting interests and they may debate each other, the more interesting debate for your paper is the one happening among scholars studying the impact of college sports on higher education. I want you to put scholars into debate.
ReplyDeleteOf course, part of the problem may be that the academics, who may be the ones writing the scholarship, may have a conflict of interest when it comes to college sports. That is an interesting issue and one worth exploring.
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