UM President Schlissel: "Athletics Isn't Part of Our Mission Statement"
Expanded quote
"What I want to be sure of is that athletics exist in an appropriate balance with everything else the university does. Athletics isn't part of the mission statement of the university. We're an academic institution, so I want to work on the appropriate balance between athletics and academics"
I'd complain about it too if I were in his position. What big-time college coaches get paid is ridiculous in the big scheme of things. It's a question of balance, proportion, and priorities.
ORly? The amount of responsibility, pressure, workload, and most importantly additional revenue they bring into the University doesn't garner their current salaries?
It depends on how you think about these things. If the question is "Does the market value college football coaches enough to justify their current salaries?" the answer is clearly yes. College football is big business and getting a top, high-profile coach pays off. If the question is "Do college football coaches' contributions to society justify their current salaries?" the answer - to me - is clearly no.
We live in a system that pays primarily by market value, so it's not surprising that these guys make what they do. But that doesn't mean people shouldn't question whether it's appropriate.
at the collegiate level. Furthermore, one can seriously ask if a women's studies(or history or literature or any liberal arts professor is really giving something that is more valuable than what a coach can give.
If we went by importance to society professors would be down the list. Firefighters, cops, farmers, craftsmen/construction....these are the most important people in society. Without them there is no society.
There are far less "professors" than you seem to think there are.
Sure there are more professors than head coaches. But most people that directly teach students are either: A) Graduate Students or B) Lecturers. There are far fewer professors than most people realize. Graduate students obviously don't get a great salary (10-15k, maybe a little more + boarding). Lecturers are around a 50k salary.
I'd agree that firefighters, cops, farmers, and manual builders are important in any civilized society, but if you're excluding educators from your list, you're leaving out the people who help teach your kids and your neighbor's kids. Or do you think that all educators are lazy, overpaid whiners who should be paid half of what they get and like it?
Your implied assertion that no "women's studies or history or literature or any liberal arts professor" is giving something more valuable than what a coach can give is an interesting tell on what you value. Would you add business, engineering, medicine, law, or architecture professors to the "liberal arts professors" you denigrate?
And how the hell do you know what that "liberal arts professor's" students are getting out of working with the professor?
But that still doesn't mean their salaries should be the same.
No one in this country gets paid based on level of importance to society. Roger Goodell's contribution to society and a 35+ year elementary school teacher are vastly different. As you know.
So why are we even discussing this I my question? We all know this is never going to happen and can't happen with the amount of money and public responsibility some of this positions hold. They're not all equal.
Job security and revenue generated isn't the same when you compare all of these positions...so we probably shouldn't compare them.
If you think Nick Saban the head football coach and Nick Saban the professor should earn the same salary at Alabama.
I'm one to think Wolverine Devotee needs to spend more time away from MGoBlog (and probably the Internet in general), but there's absolutely no reason to neg him for trying to properly give context to the quote that the OP chose to use as his title without giving context.
This is a very bad sign. Make me depressed.
So..... you claim to be a teacher, yet you're depressed about a university president who wants to make sure that academics don't take a back seat to athletics.
Oh, you're a Phys Ed teacher.
than what affects them. They simply don't care about the other stuff. This has always been the case.
SQ, not sure if I understand what you're saying. If you're saying that I don't care about anything other than athletics at UofM, that's not the case at all.
Don, also not sure if you're serious. I teach physics, not phys ed.
If you guys can't see that a) it's not a good sign for athletics at a university when a president makes comments like this, and b) supporting athletics does not hurt academics (the university's budget is not a zero-sum game), then go sit at the kiddie table and draw quietly on the back of your Michigan applications to keep yourselves entertained until the Kraft mac and cheese is served.
I've worked at schools with big-time athletic programs. When my headmaster started talking like this, it signaled that things were going to be very difficult for athletics. Harder to win, harder to recruit, harder to do anything because now you're spending time convincing your boss about what needs to be done instead of just doing it. Also, your boss starts encouraging you to focus on things other than winning. So, if you like Michigan teams to win, then yeah, this is a bad sign.
You state that it's not a zero-sum game from a budgetary standpoint, and you're right. Given the financial independence of the Michigan Athletic Department—it's one of the few in the country of its size that doesn't receive significant subsidies from the university's general fund—you appear to fear that Schlissel is going to start slashing coaching salaries. I doubt that Schlissel has much power to directly affect the financial assets of the department.
While he stated that Brandon "works for me," he doesn't have the power to fire Brandon—only the Regents can do that. I don't believe he can personally slash athletic department expenditures on coaches or infrastructure; all he can do is lobby for or against with the Regents, who are the collective body that approves such major expenditures.
Your "it's not a zero-sum game" metaphor can also apply more broadly than just in a budgetary sense—there's no reason that emphasizing the importance of academics automatically means that athletics is denigrated. The question is just what Schlissel intends to do, and his statements are general and vague enough that it's impossible to draw any specific, concrete conclusions.
Out of all the statements Schlissel made that are quoted in that article, the only one that indicates to me any potential trouble for the athletic programs is this one:
"I also feel strongly that the students who come here to be athletes – are students and that they have all the opportunities for education and to take advantage of everything that goes on here at the university, as well as pursue the sport that they love."
Does this mean that Schlissel is going to try to impose the same admission standards for athletes as apply to the general student population? Is he intending to signal that academic performance of athletes after they've been admitted will be more rigorously examined? Or is he simply wanting to make sure that athletes are given all the opportunities for learning and academic advancement that the general student population has? There are very different implications for each.
The academic corruption that was going on within the athletic department at UNC is a perfect example of a serious imbalance between athletics and academics, and I would bet that for lifelong academic-oriented administrators like Schlissel, that debacle is instructive and horrifying. Any university President worth his or her salt would naturally want to avoid even the tiniest chance that the same thing could be going on at the university they lead.
A smart incoming President has to be aware of the different power bases within the institution, and how those power bases are regarded. His statement about appropriate balance could be a reaction to the earfuls he's undoubtedly gotten from academic department deans and chairs about the predatory fund-raising tactics of the Athletic Department. Surely he's heard plenty of criticism of the current AD—Brandon is not exactly the most popular man on campus right now—and his statements about balance could be reflecting that.
Schlissel's comments about the importance of athletics at U-M seem almost anthropological to me, like he's describing a foreign culture that he's just started studying. However, he's also already acknowledged how important athletics are to the broader U-M community, and he'll need to be very careful in choosing his battles. I believe that if he tried to seriously weaken the athletic department, he would encounter immediate and serious resistance from major donors, a solid majority of the Regents, and plenty of students, staff, and faculty. As you and others have correctly pointed out, there is a pretty direct tie between major sport success and fundraising, and he'd be taking a huge financial gamble if he tried in any major way to go against that dynamic.
Of course I have no idea what your intention was beyond just having an eye catching title, but what you selected, out of the context it was in, certainly makes it hard to get the gist of the article. And it's why I usually dislike it when someone postst a link but does not summarize what they've learned from the article.
As an example, here is the entire paragraph where you extracted your quote;
"What I want to be sure of is that athletics exist in an appropriate balance with everything else the university does. Athletics isn't part of the mission statement of the university. We're an academic institution, so I want to work on the appropriate balance between athletics and academics," he said.
Overall I think the new president has a great focus on preserving what is important and distinct about the University of Michigan without forgetting the the primary goal of a University is academics and the research that is enabled by academics. For example take this quote from the article
"Athletics seems to be part of the culture here at the university in a historical sense. Generations of students, and now alums, say part of their link to the university was the shared excitement of attending sporting events, and sharing in the joys and disappointments, and the spectacle of intercollegiate athletics," he said. "I think the alums I've spoken to, as well as the students I've spoken to, uniformly speak fondly and it's part of what they remember and part of what they value as part of the university experience. It's a great part of the culture."
And maybe that is what you were trying to communicate also. But your title certainly skewed that viewpoint.
I'm old enough that I can remember Duderstadt's tenure at U-M ....... and I can faintly hear some whispers of Duderstadt's thoughts in Schlissel's comments. Any one agree/disagree on that?
I arrived on campus at the end of Harold Shapiro's tenure, Duderstadt started as president my second year in grad school. The last UM president to rise directly through the faculty ranks to become president (Bollinger was faculty, but jumped ship to an admin position at Dartmouth, I believe, before returning as president). I think you are correct in your recollection of Duderstadt's attitude towards athletics, but....that was a million years ago in sports entertainment time. The model now is that the athletic department runs the marketing department which drives university policy. Many of the top research universities have bought into this model, as they have to make up for the reduction in state funding and the limits of Federal research dollars in supporting their infrastructure.
To answer some of the criticisms of my post, yes, I copied the title from MLive.com, which was lazy on my part, but not entirely misleading. Schlissel said it. It's very important. He talks about a "balance" but he clearly states that the mission of the university does not include athletic accomplishments. That's important to people like myself who decided to attend the university for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with athletics, in fact for many of us collegiate athletics was anathema to the mission of higher education. I learned otherwise in my time in Ann Arbor, learned to love the contribution of the athletic teams to the culture of the university, and I think Schlissel is trying sincerely to get there himself. I feel pretty good about this outsider who has been brought in to lead the university we love.
Uhhh... The title of the link you referenced was
U-M President Mark Schlissel: Athletic director has delegated responsibilities, but he works for me
So, you're title was misleading. The entire quote:
"What I want to be sure of is that athletics exist in an appropriate balance with everything else the university does. Athletics isn't part of the mission statement of the university. We're an academic institution, so I want to work on the appropriate balance between athletics and academics," he said.
I just checked the title, and it's as I quoted.
And the full quote you cite supports it: in the middle of talking about achieving a "balance", he says athletics is not a part of the university's mission. Reassuring, if he lives up to it.
Edit: there are two titles on the front page of mlive, pointing to the same story.
I know there's a link on MLive that uses your quote as the link, but the title of the article is:
U-M President Mark Schlissel: Athletic director has delegated responsibilities, but he works for me
http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/07/u-m_pres_mark_sch…
Just click the link...
is VERY Duderstatian. In fact he said this. He was a very philosophical leader and did not care much about public opinion, something missing in most leaders today. This allowed him to advance Michigan in race, gender, and sexual orientation equality; modernize the campus; and improve research critical to grad schools.
While he probably preferred the marching band to the football team, under his tenure we did enjoy Rose Bowl and Final four trips.
I've read that he wishes that students were as passionate about social issues as they are about athletics.
Probably realistic to think Schlissel, an academic coming from Brown, has some of the same thoughts.
The Duderstadt era was a very enjoyable time to be studying and teaching at the UM. It was a time of tremendous academic advancement and growth of the graduate and professional schools. Many graduate programs were stronger then than they are now. Football was important to alumni and some students but not nearly as dominant a part of the culture as it is today. As you said, we had success, but you wouldn't necessarily know it if you were immersed in the academic milieu, and you could still walk up and buy a ticket at the last minute for $20 on game day for just about any game. I spent many years as a grad student and lecturer and athletics were a sideshow, except when Gary Moeller had a drink or two, or three, or four...
Don't agree about sports being less important to people back then. I think you are romanticizing the past. In the early '90s we destroyed all merchandising records with the success of the Fab Five. That was when we actually sold trading cards of the basketball team (with the players' names, stats and everything - no attempt to hide their identity)- probably the most blatant cash grab we've ever done.
I would say, if anything, that sports have actually become less important to the university community now. A significantly smaller proportion of students attends sporting events now. Our football student section used to accommodate around 60% of the student body . . . now it's more in the 40-45% range. The basketball and hockey student sections are likewise smaller. (And you certainly can get a ticket for $20 for most home football games from a scalper, if you're patient.)
Much as he would have liked to, Duderstadt could not and did not ditch athletics at Michigan. The new President won't either.
It comes off a little Duderstadt-esque, but even Duderstadt, for all his bluster about the evils of sports, couldn't resist coming into the locker room when the Fab Five reached the Final Four and giving them a pep talk. Things will probably proceed as normal.
I want to use the President's House as a venue to get to know students. I'd like to involve students in all the hosting I do of outside visitors. So if I have a dinner at the house for an interesting outside speaker, or a visitor to campus, I'd love to have a student or two as part of the group and not just faculty, for example. That would be fun
Does this mean we're going to stop poaching academic donors by charging a PSD for seats? No? Okay.
There might be some changes coming on the whole donor management thing. For example, someone on the search committee tells me that Mark wondered why donations to Athletics count for 10x the value of donations to the University generally when it comes to Priority Points.
This is great news, and I hope Schlissel fixes the Priority Points thing. It's a major problem IMO.
Dave Brandon or not...a President who doesn't treat athletics at a high major institution like athletics at a high major institution is trouble. Hell, any President that doesn't understand that Athletics is special needs to check the equality bullshit at the front door.
Athletics can make and break your university. Small scale or big scale.
Small scale...you can have a silly football player do a car slide and dent someone car and be on ESPN in an hour. You can have a silly art history major do the same thing and no one hears about it. Steal lobster from Publix...same thing.
Big scale...Sandusky is disgusting and downright awful. But if it's not connected to JoePa and athletics it goes away a hell of a lot quicker (nationally, of course no difference for the victims).
Same thing with positive things.
Our football players aren't the only volunteers at Mott Children's hospital. But you don't get the publicity when it's just a regular student.
Florida Gulf Coast, Butler, VCU, Boise St., etc. are pretty much random local institutions without athletics.
Should athletics get special treatment...maybe, sometimes. Should athletics get to do whatever it wants? Hell no. No one wants a PSU situation, at the same time, you can really hurt your institution if you want to play the equality game.
A President can put the kabosh on coaching salaries, that can impact your team in a major way. A President can halt facilities and aminities which can also impact your athletic programs with a huge negative impact.
They say "athletics is the front porch of a University," for the majority of schools that's true...especially for D1 schools.
This is just one comment, so no biggie, but Brandon and any AD needs support of his/her President or things can go south in a hurry.
I wasn't talking about a University and it's existance.
A school needs to exist before it's athletic program can have success. At least I don't know of an athletics program that's done anything before the actual institution existed.
So your point is very true...but it has nothing to do with my comments.
What I'm saying is the public spotlight on a university is magnified greatly. Enrollment goes up, in many cases the quality of the student can go up due to more applicants.
FGCU was also around FAR before it's men's basketball team went to the Sweet 16. So was Geroge Mason. So was Butler. So was VCU.
The University profile was NOT where it is now. That's just a fact.
So everyone can argue every other angle, and that's fine...many of them are correct, but the public profile of a university can easily be enhanced once the major athletic program has major success.
FGCU got quadruple the number of applicants after the Sweet 16 run. FOUR TIMES! That's nuts.
They could start the worlds best biochemistry major and not get that.
The revenue that it creates in brand, merch, media, etc. is also huge.
And it's not just about success. Outside of major academic institutions, kids go to schools that have athletic programs. Why do you think there's such a rush to start football at schools when football isn't going to make the school any money? Why do you think MAC and Sun Belt schools KEEP football when football doesn't make the school any money? Same with D2 and D3.
It's far more than just something to do for fun. That is intramurals.
Sports does not affect enrollment, quality, and university profile in any meaningful way. Study after study shows that small upticks in applications immediately go back down within a very short period. FGCU would have many more applications from having a top biochemistry major than if they became Duke basketball overnight.
At the end of the day, very few people choose their college because of sports. That's especially true for public universities. The Flutie Effect is short term.
The reason why low-level universities have football is precisely because it's something fun to do (and funded by alumni), not because they believe it will help them fulfill their academic mission or raise their university profile.
Academics, researchers, and prospective students are aware of schools like Butler, VCU, and FGCU already because they have motivation to do so. That's who raises academic profiles, not someone who likes sports and recognizes their mascot. I understand that it's counterintuitive, but every single examination of the topic bears that out. If football became banned tomorrow, Michigan would continue to be Michigan and the student body would simply find something else to do on Saturdays. Our enrollment would be pretty much the same, as would our applications, etc.
You should think about your premise not from the lower end of the academic scale, but from the higher one. If sports had a meaningful impact on your university profile the Ivy League would be the SEC and schools like Washington U, Cal Tech, MIT, etc would all pour as much money into their teams as Texas. Those schools obsess over having elite profiles and have boatloads of dollars at their disposal.
UM athletic budget $137,000,000.
UM health system budget $3,300,000,000.
It's great that our athletic department operates at a surplus and provides us with entertainment, but our new President has better things to do than have an opinion on fireworks.
But this statement strikes me as somewhat strange:
"Athletics seems to be part of the culture here at the university in a historical sense."
Seems to be? Seems to be?
I don't know how you could go through the interview process at an institution like the University of Michigan without knowing basically immediately that athletics has been a core element of the institution's identity for well over a century.
And it's not just part of the of culture here in a historical sense—it's part of the culture NOW. Schlissel has to realize that while David Brandon has irritated a lot of people during his tenure, it's not because U-M fans are unhappy with the importance placed on athletics here. People are irritated with Brandon because they see him—rightfully or not—as tossing aside a good part of the U-M athletic tradition, which they love.
Being a successful university president at a place like Michigan requires a balanced view of things. I've criticized Brandon and his department for not recognizing limits—I hope that Schlissel doesn't fall into the same habit, just from the opposite end of the spectrum.