The Hypocritical High Road of Academia
by Mountaineer Chuck on Dec 8, 2011 1:07 PM EST
in Things That Made Me Want To Throw My Shoe
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I’ve been pre-warned by my boss here at TSM to avoid political speech so as not to piss off this faction or that faction of the political spectrum. So, let me state up front that this is not about politics. It’s about hypocrisy at the supposed highest level of our society. Academia.
I’m a PhD student at an ACC school. I often hear academicians speak negatively about college athletics, as if the football team is keeping students from the real task of learning or distracting teachers from the real mission of the college. These folks would contend that THEY are really concerned about the students and the others are merely trying to profit from the kids’ athletic success.
In a recent "Business Week" piece on Big East expansion, the titular head of the NCAA weighed in with his "concern" about student athletes amidst all of the changes in college football. "This is a continuation of the dominoes that are falling around conference realignment,’’ Mark Emmert, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, said today in an interview in New York. ‘‘I certainly hope they are taking care of student-athlete welfare in all of this.’’
Can we talk? It has been a long time since NCAA Division I football has been concerned PRIMARILY with the student athlete. However, in my decade as a college student I’ve learned that it’s not primarily about the students in the academic academy, either. ("A lot of people go to college for ten years." – 'Tommy Boy' Callahan). Don’t let the high and mighty "Intelligencia" fool you into thinking they are any less prone to using students for their own ends or capitalizing on student success.
Ivory tower academicians have their own little scam going on, too. They publish to get prestigious. They raise gobs of cash to build monuments to their own successes – they just call them the "School of _________" buildings instead of athletic centers. Big time academics are all about money and prominence. The self-righteous university Presidents and school Deans demonstrate the same impulse as their school's Athletic Departments when they exclude schools from being part of their prestigious conferences and associations because they aren’t intellectually "up to snuff."
It’s about winning at Yale, Harvard, etc. They want to be the BEST academic institutions. They exclude the UVA’s and Duke’s from their fraternity of snobbery, and these sub-Ivy League schools resent their exclusion. However, they turn around and do the same thing to land grant institutions like WVU who supposedly don’t measure up to their "elite" academic standards.
ACC academicians aren’t sympathetically trying to help less wealthy or well-placed academic institutions get a leg up to the heights of their academic glory. They want to attract the best schools and ultimately the best students so the financial merry-go-round can continue for years to come. Wealthy families pay top dollar tuition. Successful students have successful careers and give money back to the institution. Wealthy donors are solicited so the school and its professors can gloriously build their prestige. And don’t forget about the named "academic" facilities.
Ivy League wannabe academicians in the ACC don’t care more about students than do the under-educated jocks of their school’s athletic departments. Both do care about students, and at varying times the priority of the individual student is more important than others. But just like their athletic counterparts, academicians want to their university to be the best for their own job security, self-esteem and a host of other reasons completely separate from the well being of the student.
For the record, I’m happy that college athletics are big business. I love watching 10 college football games each Saturday in the fall. I support the system by purchasing all sorts of blue and gold crap with WV’s on it. I’m actually happy that my kids are buying me a WVU "Snuggie" for Christmas.
Along the way, I got a college degree in journalism from WVU that taught me how to do something I like and could get paid to do. I just think it is hypocrisy to pretend that going to Mountaineer Field wasn’t more fun than going to class and working in the kitchen at Westchester Hall. And it’s equally hypocritical for academicians to pretend that they don’t have a personal stake in student success.
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Am I the only one
that feels a little more enlightened every time Chuck writes a post? I’d be curious to know how much you’ve watched what happened at Rutgers over the past few years with the cuts they’ve made on the academic side while overspending on the football side.
If only my wife felt that way.
She’s sick of listening to me pontificate.
by Mountaineer Chuck on Dec 8, 2011 2:47 PM EST up reply actions
Nope.
I enjoy his posts too. They’re always well written and informative.
Actually, I feel that way any time any of the contributors, like you, John, post. You guys just about always write something I really enjoy reading. I suppose that’s why I keep coming back here. :)
"that place laid the foundation for who I am. A lot of outsiders make fun of it and say negative things about West Virginia. Fuck them" - Jerry West
by MountaineerAirman on Dec 8, 2011 2:49 PM EST up reply actions
I agree, too.
Chuck has been a great addition. Airman, quit sucking up.
www.smokingmusket.com
@CountryRoadsWV
by Country Roads on Dec 8, 2011 4:37 PM EST up reply actions
Bahahahahahaha
I am speechless.
"that place laid the foundation for who I am. A lot of outsiders make fun of it and say negative things about West Virginia. Fuck them" - Jerry West
by MountaineerAirman on Dec 8, 2011 5:58 PM EST up reply actions
Well said sir.
Here’s a link to a super long article from the Atlantic that states unequivocally that college sports has never been about the student athlete.
"Thus, it is with those nurtured in Appalachia—they leave, but they look back, remembering pleasant things. The land has claimed them, and its ties will not be severed." --Maurice Brooks
Dr. Charley West, Please don't block me if I have typos or poor grammar.
by Oregon Mountaineer on Dec 8, 2011 1:41 PM EST reply actions
I was a two-sport athlete in undergrad at the D-II level, and I have to say things are very different there than at the D-I level. Academics was most certainly the priority, respecting the fact that sports are hardly on the same “big business” level—I imagine that plays a huge part in the deviation.
As for the NCAA itself, at least in regards to D-I athletics (or maybe even more specifically football and less so basketball), everyone knows it is a sham of an organization anymore. Attempting to maintain its “amateur” status is the biggest farce this side of Scientology.
I entirely agree with the article that upper-echelon academics operate on an exclusionary basis and such a practice drives up their image and ultimately cost. Like anything else these schools are a business; they have reputations and a bottom line to consider.
I don't understand your point here...
Intercollegiate athletics is analogous to academia in many ways. Money and prestige and the quest for excellence are big drivers of both. But I think you push the analogy too far. “Named” academic buildings are not analogous to named sports facilities on campus. Education takes place in academic buildings seven days a week for most of the year. Entertainment takes place in a football stadium on seven Saturdays a year.
Inability to join the Ivy League is not reducing the research that takes place at Duke or UVA, or any other non-Ivy. Unlike sports, research is not a zero sum game. I went to both WVU and Johns Hopkins. I assure you that nobody at Hopkins “resents” not being in the Ivy League, and it hasn’t had any effect on the university. The same could be said for the University of Chicago, Cal Tech, and any number of other universities. And lots of land grant public universities “measure up”: Cal, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois (and by the way, both Cornell and MIT are land grant universities).
You also seem to imply that students are just as exploited by the academics at a university as student athletes. That is a load of crap. Research suggests that a college football player good enough to get drafted in the NFL generates more than a million dollars in revenue per year for his athletic program. In exchange he is “paid” a full-ride scholarship (tuition, room and board). That is a textbook definition of exploitation. If a non-student athlete generates that sort of revenue for a university (I suppose it might be possible from a patent), compensation would be involved. And, on average, the present discounted value of a college education vastly exceeds the cost of tuition (note to humanities majors: YMMV). That is not exploitation.
I also don’t see how publication is a “scam.” Academic publication is how knowledge gets transmitted among researchers. That ultimately benefits society. How is that a “scam”?
Finally, I’m not happy that big-time intercollegiate athletics is big business, because it involves big exploitation. Why should athletic departments earn millions of dollars off of student athletes and not compensate them? College football and basketball players are doing a very similar job as professional football and basketball players for almost no compensation. They are taking the same risks of injury. Athletic department administrators, coaches, and idiots like Jim Swofford, are paid huge salaries because athletic departments can operate what amounts to professional sports operations without paying the revenue generating employees anything close to the revenues they generate.
No sig.
by GenericCommenter0001 on Dec 8, 2011 4:47 PM EST reply actions
Academic publication...
is part of the overall profit generating machine that is Big-time Academia. I applaud any altruistic motive behind research (medical science, the greater good of mankind, etc…), and I have no problem with the generation of revenue or “competing” with other universities for grants, students or other funding. And I never said that they are “just as exploited.” But if we’re talking degrees of exploitation, than I will contend that college athletics is hugely beneficial on many levels, even to the Universities.
My point is that many of us are/were students, and a huge part of what makes us loyal to our university is the athletic program. As one commenter stated, my journalism degree didn’t exactly propel me into the upper echelon income bracket, yet I still manage to give money to the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism because I love WVU. That love is fostered by my enjoyment of the athletic program, not any sort of pride I have in the academic buildings named after Mr. Reed or the quality of the journalism education I received.
My point is, as someone involved in the “academic research” of a “Research 1” university, I can testify to the animus that ACC schools have over not being thought of as the upper crust. I cannot speak for Johns Hopkins, itself is a highly prestigious medical research institution.
I can say that much of what gets “published” within the Academy doesn’t result in significant life change for many and is done largely to advance the careers of professors who are looking forward to a tenured faculty position or the financial renumeration that comes with a breakthrough project.
Graduate students labor on behalf of these professors as “researchers” and “co-authors” of papers submitted to conferences, and themselves get nothing in return. Most are paying big tuition for the privilege of doing research for the tenured professor. In the end – albeit on a smaller scale – Big Time Academia is a system that uses donated money to prop up a system that uses education to make money.
I’m glad your Johns Hopkins experience was a good one. And for the benefits to mankind that come from academic research, I’m grateful. I don’t disagree that college athletics is a broken system that takes advantage of some people looking to find their way to the next level of life. But academia itself is still a system that is as corrupted by money and power politics as any other. To contend otherwise is, in my opinion, naive.
by Mountaineer Chuck on Dec 8, 2011 7:07 PM EST up reply actions
Couple of things
Johns Hopkins is a university, not a “medical research institution.” I am not a physician or a medical professional.
I have never attended or worked at an ACC university, but I know a lot of people who do (and have). I never got the sense that they were envious of the Ivies. I don’t know many Dukies, though.
The fact that much of the published research does not result in a significant life change for many does not invalidate the process. A small number have a huge effect. And career advancement is not inconsistent with an academic’s research having an impact.
I don’t understand where these profits are from the publication process. I have published about 60 papers in peer reviewed journals, and have never been paid a dime. In fact, most journals in my area have submission fees. The publication process generates huge profits for academic publishing houses, not universities. I agree that it generates prestige, but I don’t think prestige is the driving force behind the publication process, at least in my discipline.
Outside professional schools and MBA programs, any graduate student (well, PhD student, I might be convinced otherwise about some masters programs) who pays tuition has made a big mistake. I got paid to go to graduate school, as did just about every academic I know. In my experience, grad students who are co-authors on papers are getting paid and getting tuition waivers.
Every part of life I can think of has been “corrupted” by power politics, in my experience. I don’t think money is corrosive, in general. I think that financial rewards provide powerful incentives for people to do all sorts of things, good and bad.
No sig.
by GenericCommenter0001 on Dec 8, 2011 7:47 PM EST up reply actions
I agree with much of what you've said.
For clarity’s sake, I never said that you were a physician or a medical professional. But to contend that Johns Hopkins isn’t (in part) a medical research institution would be splitting hairs. (http://webapps.jhu.edu/jhuniverse/research)
And I agree that $$$ is a good thing – it propels research and athletic departments. And the growth of college athletics isn’t necessarily inconsistent with athletes being students.
As someone who has logged more hours than I’ve been paid for (or compensated fairly for with credit), I can tell you that I’m not alone in feeling exploited by ambitious professors and/or recognizing that this is the system; if I’m going to build a career for myself, I’m part of it for better or for worse.
I think a lot of college athletes might say the same thing.
by Mountaineer Chuck on Dec 8, 2011 8:04 PM EST up reply actions
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