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Are our colleges just clowning around?

"Public faith in higher education cannot be sustained if college sports are permitted to become a circus, with the institution itself little more than a supporting sideshow."

Paraphrasing from former Yale president A. Bartlett Giamatti, that's what Creed C. Black wrote in a Knight Commission report two decades ago - long before the scandals that rocked Penn State and other institutions around the country. If the situation was that bad then, just imagine what he would say today.

The quote surfaced in a commentary by William Friday, president emeritus of the University of North Carolina system, in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Friday calls for a reexamination of the collegiate sports world. The exponential growth of certain sports programs, he said, have caused an arrangement which "can lead to entertainment imperatives taking precedence over those of education."

Friday summed up the thrust of his argument with a message that mirrors that of ACTA.

"There is a sound and important place for intercollegiate sports in academic institutions. It is time for those directly responsible to exert strong leadership and bring an immediate end to the shameful exploitation and abuse now so destructive of these worthy and essential institutions. Thoughtful Americans expect no less from trustees and university leaders."

Friday also called for increased transparency, including requiring intercollegiate sports programs to outline where funding comes from and how it is spent.

ACTA supports Friday's reminder to colleges that their prime focus must be education.

Posted by dburnett on December 14, 2011 at December 14, 2011 05:53 PM

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