REPORT
ON VARSITY ATHLETICS
by
Ad
Hoc Faculty Committee on Athletics
The
Ad Hoc Faculty Committee on Athletics was formed at the behest of President
Morton Schapiro to explore the status of athletics at the college. The
Committee consists of a chair, Michael MacDonald, tenured faculty from each of
the three divisions – Chris Pye, Stephen Sheppard, and Lee Park – and the coach
of the men’s soccer team, Mike Russo, and of the women’s tennis and squash
teams, Julie Greenwood. The athletic faculty were appointed by the Athletic
Director, Harry Sheehy. The four
academic faculty were appointed by President Schapiro on the advice of the
Steering Committee.
The Committee was appointed in part because periodic
reviews are a good idea. But the timing of the review is directly bound up with
a recent intensification of concerns about the role of athletics prompted by
the publication of James Shulman and William Bowen’s The Game of Life:
College Sports and Educational Value.
President Schapiro encouraged all members of the academic community to
read the book, and for good reason. The book investigates the educational
consequences of the increasing professionalization of sports in the academy –
the intensification of athletic recruitment, of financial and cultural investments
in athletics, and of specialization.
Though the book considers the range of institutions of higher education
– from big, Division 1 universities to liberal arts colleges – the book is
fundamentally about Williams and the schools to which it likens itself. One of the authors’ central points is that
athletics has a less pervasive influence at Division 1 universities, which
offer athletic scholarships but where 5% of students play varsity sports, than
at Williams, where 30-32% of the students are varsity athletes. For better or for worse (or, for better and
for worse), the culture of athletics permeates the fabric of the institution
here more fundamentally than it does at most any other institution of higher
learning.
Part
of our aim was to find out how pertinent Shulman and Bowen’s concerns are to
Williams right now. But it is worth
noting that the most striking aspect of their analysis is the long view, the
larger 10 and 20 year trajectories they trace.
For instance, the number of high profile athletes (football, basketball,
hockey) in Shulman’s and Bowen’s account at liberal arts colleges who reported
that recruitment was a very significant reason for their choice of college
moved from 38% in 1976 to 83% in a 1989.
Even adjusting for differences in SAT levels, the admissions advantage
for athletes at the one school for which they have full data moved from 30% in
1989 to 48% in 1999, whereas that for minorities moved from 23% to 25%.[1] Whatever one decides about the advantages or
disadvantages of athletics, it is critically important for us to be at least
conscious of this larger picture. To
the extent that we make policy decisions solely on the basis of keeping up with
or ahead of our comparison schools, such trends will clearly continue, and –
and this is the key point – they will continue blindly.
Most significantly,
the work of the Committee is justified because the larger question of the
status of athletics in relation to the goals of the college simply has not been
engaged institutionally. The College backs teams with preference for athletes
in admissions, has expanded the coaching staff (in part in response to Title
IX), and has arranged the schedule of classes to accommodate extracurricular
activities, especially athletics. Yet
notwithstanding its commitments to athletics, the College has not reviewed and
has not established mechanisms for supervising the athletic program
systematically. Athletics may provide
surpassing benefits to the College or may inflict unjustifiable costs on the College:
the matter has not been examined by the College.
Accordingly, we
focused our investigations on varsity athletics. This is not to say that there
are not important issues related to junior varsity and club sports. But varsity sports are the programs we
sponsor institutionally – they receive the College’s imprimatur – and they
raise by far the most significant issues in relation to admissions and
expenditure of resources.
Our
method was to approach the issue of athletics a number of different ways. We have conducted interviews with the
athletic director, coaches, captains, former athletes, non-athletes, the
minority council, two departments with large numbers of athletes enrolled in
them, the current and previous Deans of the College, the President, the
Calendar and Schedule Committee, the Dean of the Faculty, the Provost and the
director of institutional research. We
have reviewed data accumulated by the Provost’s office on admissions, grades,
the choice of majors by athletes, and the curriculum.[2]
We also prepared and circulated a
survey for faculty and students. About 65% of the faculty responded to the
faculty survey, and 60% of the 1,000 students who were sampled responded to the
student survey. We have tried to
process the information we have received in ways that get at telling
differences, real differences in perceptions between, say, faculty in different
divisions, between new faculty and veterans, between first year and senior
students.
What
did we discover? Among other things, that athletics at Williams has been
extraordinarily successful. We all know that in a general way, but it is worth
looking at the numbers. Williams has
won the Division 3 Sears cup for 5 of the past 6 years running – this is for
having the most successful athletics program across the board. Although sports has always been significant
at Williams, the college has clearly become an athletic powerhouse since the
90’s. We have calculated the varsity
win/loss percentage over five year periods since 1981/2:[3]
|
Time Period |
Average Team Winning
Percentage |
|
1981/2 through ‘85/6 |
54.1 |
|
1986/7 through ‘90/1 |
68.5 |
|
1991/2 through ‘95/6 |
76.1 |
|
1996/7 through ‘00/1 |
77.1 |
There
can be many reasons for such successes, but chief among them is the talent and
dedication of the coaches – we know that not just from their won/lost records,
but from the testimony of so many of the athletes we have spoken with. The
athletics department at Williams is without question the strongest Division 3
program in the country.
And
it is worth noting that, as members of NESCAC, William’s coaches have
accomplished their successes within the terms of far and away the most rigorous
constraints of any college conference. For example, excellent schools in other
conferences begin their seasons earlier, play more games during their seasons,
stage practices and games during the off-season, and allow for more active
recruiting of athletes. While the
coaches we spoke with differ in the particulars of their coaching philosophies,
all demonstrate an allegiance to the educational mission of the college simply
insofar as they choose to coach here.
We should say, too, that the athletic faculty, not surprisingly, feels
unappreciated. They see themselves as
doing their jobs very successfully, individually and collectively, as winning
respect throughout their profession, yet receiving the disdain of the academic
faculty. The Athletic Director, Harry
Sheehy, last year remarked in the Record that coaches felt like prophets
without honor in their own land. Their
achievements, they worry, are respected everywhere else; but not here.
We
want to say at the outset that we have discovered that it is in fact very hard
to talk about athletics in general at the college, or even about
Varsity athletics in general. There are vastly different cultures associated
with different teams, and we need to keep these differences in mind as we weigh
the issue of athletics.
We
will get into particulars in what follows – admissions reader’s reports,
practice times, etc. – but it is important to begin with the largest question:
what in principle is the role of athletics in relation to the educational
mission of the college? We have
received various accounts of the value of athletics. They include:
1.
The “sound mind in a sound body” thesis. Athletics is significant to the physical and
psychic health of students. The arguments for this claim are clear and, with
the possible exception of teams where players must make weights, are
incontrovertible, having to do with the value of health. But they serve as a justification for a
physical education program more than for building an extensive varsity
program.
2.
The “athletics as educational” thesis; the point is
that students learn skills in playing athletics that extend beyond the playing
field. “Athletic experience,” says
Harry Sheehy, “enhances growth in the classroom. Confidence, time management, leadership, group dynamics and
self-awareness are a few traits that can couple with the classroom experience
to help form a more effective student.”
The claim is difficult to assess empirically, but we did find – and this
is contrary to the findings of Shulman and Bowen – that athletes at Williams do
not perform below expectations. That
is, athletes perform at the same level as non-athletes admitted with comparable
academic ratings (high school grades, SAT scores, etc.). At the same time, they do not perform any
better than those comparable students, so it is hard to make the case that
athletic participation translates into academic advantage for these
students. Among the former athletes we
interviewed, about the same number said that their school work improved after
dropping their varsity sport as said it made no difference one way or the
other.
3.
There is, however, a more sweeping argument that
athletics teaches an array of skills and values that can not be measured in academic
performance but are valuable nonetheless – that it teaches “life-lessons” about
working with others, overcoming adversity, thinking quickly, etc.. The
Committee feels this is probably true.
On the other hand, we are wary about this argument serving as a guide to
policy. It can imply a profound
realignment of education priorities, suggesting, for instance, that an
athletically talented team is it is own justification. Whether intended to do
so or not, the recent description of athletics as “co-curricular” rather than
“extra-curricular” risks endorsing such an account. We think it is important to retain the understanding that athletics
is an extra-curricular activity.
4.
Successful teams, it is suggested, are a source of real
pride and thus important for a sense of community at the college, or at least
for many at the college. As Harry
Sheehy has said, athletics “builds campus spirit and community,” overcoming the
“balkanization of our campus.”
Athletics breaks down barriers and has a special “potential to unify our
community at key times.” Of course,
other, less-institutionally funded activities might have strong, community
affirming dimensions of their own.
Nevertheless, varsity athletes helps serve this purpose, and we will
want to keep this claim in mind as we explore the relation between teams and
community in a more textured way below.
5.
Finally, it can be argued that a successful athletics
program actually brings us stronger students. The argument runs like this: The
college can not hope to compete in a consistent way for the very strongest
students in sheer intellectual terms – more often than not, we will lose such
students to Ivy League schools. We can compete, however, for a student with a
particular profile: the very bright, as we say, “well-rounded” student, the
smart student who wants to be at an institution where he or she can continue to
participate in athletics at a high level.
As President Schapiro put the point publicly, a good athlete who is a
good student would have to be “nuts” not to consider attending Williams. Because such students are more drawn to a
college that competes successfully in athletics, it is in the college’s
interests to do what it can within reasonable boundaries to sustain its
athletic programs at their current, or at least at a strong, level. In other words, we have a niche, and it
would be a mistake to jeopardize it.
This is a strong argument, and it would be good to find a way to test
its validity. The College should study
the costs of turning prospective students away, and turning potential
applicants off, as a consequence of admitting athletes and favoring athletics. Aside from the practical question of
trade-offs, the argument in favor of the admissions advantages of having an
athletic niche raises two larger points.
If we do in fact occupy a niche, it is important that it is one we are
willing to affirm actively and consciously; that is, is this the intellectual
profile we want for ourselves? Second, to the extent that such an argument is a
principled one, it implies that the college places a special premium on
“well-roundedness.” We should, therefore, make sure that the role of athletics
is in practice working to sustain that ideal.
In general, the Committee was
inclined to accept that athletics confers benefits on its participants and on
the institution. Our main concern was
to weigh those benefits against the possible costs of athletics as it is
currently sustained at the college, with all its remarkable successes. Although
these areas of concern overlap, we have divided our analysis into three
domains: Admissions; Athletics and student culture; Athletics and intellectual
life.
Admissions
It is
clear from our faculty survey that most faculty feel the college places too
much emphasis on athletics, and that most who responded thus locates the
problem with admissions policy. It is also clear that faculty is unclear about
what the admissions policy actually is, and what it means to say there are
admission “tips” for athletes.
The word “tips” is a misnomer, because what are called “tips” do not tip the balance when all other things are equal. Tips more accurately should be seen as “coaches’ preferences.” Coaches are allocated a certain number of choices per year, depending on the sport. These preferences, when ratified by the Admissions office, are what are called “tips.”
The formal process begins with a review of all applications by the Admissions Department, in which two ratings are assigned. The first is the academic ranking on a 1 to 9 scale; the second is the extra-curricular ranking. Williams has, in effect, two kinds of admits. The first are those who are selected on a combination of the academic and extra-curricular ratings. Almost all students with academic rankings of 1 are accepted; about 65% of students with academic ratings of 2 are accepted, with extra-curricular activities often being the deciding factor among academic 2s. The second kind of admits come from tips, who are students admitted for reasons of College policy (for example, athletics and legacies). The College never accepts applicants with an academic ranking of 8 or 9, and does not want too many 6s and 7s.
Coaches’ preferences are spots in the incoming class set aside at the outset of the admissions process, with the Athletic Department now receiving 66. It then divvies them among the various teams, with some teams – football, for example – receiving more than other teams. The advantage of the system of coaches’ preferences, which was implemented in the early ‘80s, is said to be that it allows coaches to get the players they want, providing they meet the academic standards set by the admissions office. Before the instituting of the coaches’ preference system, the admissions office admitted players, with more or less consultation with coaches (depending on the particular coach), on its own authority. Sometimes the players were not very good, sometimes they were not the players preferred by coaches, and sometimes the players, since admitted through normal channels, chose not to come to Williams. As a result, the College had to admit many more athletes than it needed, and hoped that not too many and not too few in general, not too many or too few for particular teams, and not too many or too few for particular positions on particular teams, would attend Williams. The system was regarded, therefore, as unsatisfactory by both the Athletic Department and the Admissions Office. The current system – by allowing coaches to recommend athletes they prefer, to negotiate with the Admissions office in the event that they want too many weak students, and by limiting coaches to a specific number of spots, even if the admits choose not to attend Williams – promotes predictability and, judging from the coincidence of the coaches choice system and our records, athletic excellence.
Coaches’ preferences are not the only advantages extended to athletes. Applicants who are ranked as 2s generally are accepted by virtue of their curricular and extra-curricular accomplishments, including athletics. Moreover, the College also has what are called “protects,” by which 32 openings are allocated for athletes with academic ratings of 3. The allocation of over 100 spots per entering class to “coaches choices” and “protects” indicates a major commitment on the part of the College to athletics. The Athletic Department, for its part, notes that other schools – Amherst, especially – have the same number of coaches’ preferences, but have fewer teams. As a result, Williams often has fewer coaches’ preferences per team, although that does not seem to have hampered our teams unduly.
The Committee thinks that admissions preferences for athletes is an important issue. The College is taking many students because of their athletic ability, and incurs academic costs as a result. The SAT scores of applicants who are flagged with the athletic attributes are, on average, lower than those of other students. The weaker students are not, moreover, spread evenly among teams. The lowest academic readers’ ratings are concentrated in two or three teams, mostly men’s teams. Several teams are anchored by coaches’ preferences with low academic ratings, with stronger students filling in around them. About 25% of admits flagged as “A attributes” have academic ratings of 1 or 2.[4] The other 75% of athletes have academic ratings of 3 to 7.
The academic ratings of incoming Williams students – both
athletically tipped and all other students – have risen over the past
decade. In ’90 and ’91, the average
academic ratings for tipped athletes were in the 5.7-5.8 range. For ’92 through ’98, they hovered around
5.5. For ‘99-’00, they averaged about
5.0. Meanwhile, the academic ratings of
all other students rose from 3.6 in ’90 and ’91 to 2.8 in ’00, improving fairly
steadily. The number of “low-band
athletic admits” – that is, athletes with academic ratings below 6.0 – has
decreased by 38% from previous levels for the classes of 2003-’05. In the class of 2006, the Athletic
Department reports that only 10 “low-band” athletes were admitted, in
accordance with our President’s commitment to make our athletes representative
of our student body.
But the Committee is not convinced that
admissions should be our sole focus as we explore the issue of varsity
athletics. First, it is
methodologically unsound to suggest that admissions is the whole of the matter
until other aspects of the question have been considered and discarded. Focusing entirely on admissions without
considering the other implications of athletics is rather like the drunk who
looks under the lamppost for his keys; it reflects the fact that we have data
on admissions and have not had data on other aspects of the issues. Consequently, the Committee has endeavored
to broaden the College’s understanding, if only because we cannot conclude that
problems arise primarily from admissions without investigating other sources,
dimensions, and hypotheses. Second,
data we have accumulated suggests that admissions is not the whole of
the explanation. Although the academic
qualifications of incoming varsity athletes have improved steadily over the
past decade, much of the faculty is convinced that the educational costs of
athletics are growing over time. If
both findings are valid, then something is mediating between the qualifications
of our student athletes and their performances in our classes.
Student
Culture
Faculty
and students generally agree that athletics is significant to the social and
educational life of the college, and has, according to 63% of the faculty,
increased in their time at Williams.
Students describe a similar experience, of athletics exerting a powerful
influence on their social life and educational experiences. That does not mean that faculty and students
are agreed on the balance of costs and benefits derived from athletics. But faculty and (especially) students tend
to agree on the facts the matter, that the influence of teams and athletes is
pervasive in the social and intellectual life of Williams.
The
effects of athletics on the cultural and educational dimensions of the
institution are hard to disentangle, but for heuristic reasons we will begin
with student culture. Students were asked about the importance of athletics to
their social life at Williams. Their
answers attest to the significance of athletics. 14% of students said athletics was “dominant” in organizing
social life. 57% called athletics
“significant” and 27% thought it was “somewhat significant.” Totaling those three responses, 98% of
students thought athletics was of some significance or more. Students have varied personal experiences of
the social reality they describe in general.
When asked about the significance of teams in organizing social life for
them personally, only 37% – down from
71% – described teams as “dominant” or “significant.” Students may develop strategies for embracing, coping with or
avoiding the social prominence of teams, but they do not think that they escape
it. We asked what we thought to be a
strong question about the impact of teams in shaping how students are
perceived. “Do you feel that belonging
or not belonging to a team defines you, as others see you, at Williams.” 58% of our students felt defined in their
eyes of others by their status as varsity athletes or non-athletes. Our students may feel that others define
them as athletes or as non-athletes, but they do not define themselves in those
terms. Only 5% think their status as
varsity athletes or not as varsity athletes is “dominant” in defining their own
senses of identity and 33% think the athletic status is “significant” in their
self-definition. Nevertheless, team
membership plays a major role in organizing housing choices. 61% of our varsity athletes met some of
those they plan to live with next year on a team.
Students,
in other words, report that varsity athletics is significant in their social
life, over half feel that belonging or not belonging to a varsity team
“defines” how other students see them; it also plays a significant role in who
lives with whom. When asked
specifically about the pervasiveness of athletics at Williams and whether it is
a good or a bad thing, 68% of our students regard athletics as “more pervasive”
at Williams than at other excellent colleges.
38% of our students think that is good and 31% think it is bad, but
two-thirds of our students think it is true.
We have given aggregate numbers, the percentages of all
of our students who have various opinions.
But the aggregate numbers break down in interesting ways when we
organize the responses to questions about the prominence of social life by the
athletic status of our students. The
general pattern is clear. Students who
are not varsity athletes – whom we are calling “non-athletes”[5]
– think teams are more important in organizing social life at Williams than do
varsity athletes. And many non-athletes
are displeased by the social prominence of teams at Williams.
Students
who are not varsity athletes see teams as more significant socially than do
varsity athletes. 6% of athletes think
teams are “dominant” versus 19% of non-athletes, and 58% of athletes think
teams are “significant” versus 56% of non-athletes who think they are
“significant.” We offered students 5
possible answers, and 64% of varsity athletes ranked athletics in the two
highest categories. By contrast, 75% of
non-athletes ranked athletics in the two top categories, with most of the
difference surfacing in the number of students who think it is “dominant.” One-fifth of our non-athletes think teams
are “dominant” in organizing social life.
But students describe a different reality for them personally. Varsity athletes, who tend to find teams
less important socially than non-athletes in organizing social life at the
College, do find them important for organizing their own social lives. 59% of varsity athletes characterize teams
as “dominant” or “significant” in organizing social life for them personally. Non-athletes, 75% of whom think that teams
are “dominant” or “significant” in organizing social life at the College, do
not think it organizes their lives personally.
Only 23% called the impact of teams in organizing their social lives
“dominant” or “significant.”
That
is, varsity athletes describe an integrated social reality. They describe the general prominence of
teams and social life and the particular prominence of teams in their
individual lives in very similar terms, and they find comfort in their teams
and coaches. When asked whom they would
consult about “a major personal problem,” 45% of varsity athletes mentioned
their coach. By comparison, 29% of all
students would consult a professor or faculty advisor and only 17% of all
students would consult a dean.
Non-athletes, on the other hand, describe a bifurcated life. Teams are characterized as “dominant” or
“significant” in the social life of the College by three-quarters of them, but
less than a quarter of them describe teams as “dominant” or “significant” for
their lives personally. The non-athletes describe a less integrated social
reality. They make lives for themselves
outside the society they describe as prevalent at the College.
Athletes
and non-athletes feel equally defined by membership or non-membership on
teams. Athletes seem comfortable with
the importance attached to belonging to a team. 77% think it is “about right” versus 22% who think it “too
much.” Only 1% of athletes think the
importance attached to teams is “too little.”
By contrast, 57% of non-athletes think “too much” importance is attached
to belonging to a team. Similarly, 53%
of varsity athletes think athletics is more pervasive at Williams than at
similar colleges and that is a good thing.
Only 27% of non-athletes agree with them. 45% of non-athletes, however, agree that athletics are more
pervasive here, but disagree in thinking that is a bad thing.
Finally,
our Committee reviewed data on disciplinary incidents and honors offenses
assembled by the Dean's office. The
data on discipline were assembled for the years 1998-99 through 2000-01, and on
honors offenses for the years 1996-97 though 1999-00. The numbers of incidents are small, and must be approached
cautiously. Nevertheless, certain
patterns emerge. First, disciplinary
actions in general at Williams overwhelmingly involve male students; this
pattern holds for athletes as well.
Second, 56% of the disciplinary actions taken against students with the
A attribute were directed towards the members of two teams. We have heard reports from athletes that the
conduct of teams improves and deteriorates according to the comings and goings
of a few players on teams. Third,
athletic admits were about twice as likely as the student body as a whole to
receive “discuss/warnings,” and were more likely than the student body to be
found culpable of multiple offenses, and receive probation, suspension, or
expulsion. Finally, athletic admits
were three times as likely to be found to commit honor code violations than the
student body as a whole, and are somewhat more likely to commit violations than
members of the comparison group. These
figures are not broken down by team.
What
the Committee finds, in other words, is something akin to a culture of
athletics. Athletes, who often are
drawn and brought to Williams because they are athletes, feel comfortable here
socially. They do not think they
preside over social life, but other students believe that they do. Athletes live and socialize together. Moreover, a majority of non-athletes
disapproves of the social prominence of athletes. Over half of non-athlete students feel defined as non-athletes,
over half of non-athlete students feel athletics is too pervasive here, and
over half of our non-athlete students feel too much importance is attached to
belonging to teams.
Education
Williams
is, of course, a college, and education is our core project. The social prominence of teams is a social
problem for many students, although they believe that they can carve out niches
for themselves. Our greatest concern
must be the educational impact of athletics.
Judging from student perceptions conveyed in the survey,
athletes and non-athletes feel about equally in place and out of place
academically at Williams. About 10%
fewer athletes than non-athletes characterize themselves as “more”
intellectually engaged than typical Williams students, but are only slightly
more likely to describe themselves as “less” engaged. Athletes are less likely to attend campus lectures that are not
related to their coursework, but are as likely to go to office hours. Almost half of varsity athletes also claim
to experience discrimination “sometimes” or “often” from faculty in class. But athletes do not generally describe themselves
as intellectually alienated from the College.
In their self-perception, athletes closely resemble non-athletes as
students. They do not feel especially
out of place and express a bit less interest in activities such as outside
lectures, but the differences are not dramatic.
It is encouraging that varsity athletes feel part of the
intellectual community. But that is
only part of the issue. We also wanted
to know whether varsity athletics has an impact on the educational environment
of the college. The evidence on that
question is uncomfortably mixed. Over
three-quarters of our students (77%) report that some courses have a reputation
for drawing members of particular teams, and 42% of them are less likely to
take such a course or would not take it at all. Almost a quarter of our students (23%) find the chemistry of
classes is “completely” or “significantly” influenced by the team affiliations
of the students, and 61% of our non-athlete students think class chemistry is
affected “completely,” “significantly,” or “somewhat” by teams. Nevertheless, almost half of our students
(48%) think athletics enhances the educational mission of the College, and
another quarter of our students think it has no effect on education. Only 26% of students think athletics
detracts from the educational mission of the College. These results, of course, include varsity athletes. When we consider the responses of
non-athletes only, we see a different picture.
Only 31% of non-athletes think athletics enhances the educational
mission of the College and 39% of them think it detracts from the educational
mission of the College. These
proportions are more favorable when we ask students about the impact of varsity
athletes on their educations. About half of all students (51%), and 85% of
varsity athletes, think their educations are enhanced by athletics, and only
15% of all students and 22% of non-athletes think athletics detracts from their
education.
The
positives associated with athletics are stronger for freshmen than for seniors,
and the negatives are stronger for seniors than freshmen. Seniors are more likely than freshmen to
think athletics at Williams needs to be explored, to regard the importance
attached to teams as excessive, to judge the pervasiveness of athletics as a
bad thing, to avoid courses because of the presence of athletes, to think that
athletics detracts from education at the college (21% for freshmen, 36% for
seniors) and for them personally (9% for freshmen versus 19% for seniors). The longer students are here, in other
words, the more they detect a negative intellectual impact of athletics. The change is not dramatic, but it is
noticeable and consistent across an array of measures about the costs to
intellectual life of teams.
Interestingly, seniors do not see the social prominence of teams as
greater than freshmen.
The
Committee also considered the impact of gender and ethnicity of the student
responses. Gender did not have a large
effect on the results, although it is notable that male students tended to
report a greater impact of athletics (both positively and negatively) than
female students. Females were somewhat
more likely to report that athletics had “no effect” on their experiences. Ethnicity had a more pronounced impact,
however. Students in minority groups
were significantly less likely to report that athletics enhanced the
educational mission of the college, and were much less likely to report that
athletics had enhanced their individual college experiences.
Student
opinion, then, follows an interesting pattern.
Students generally think teams play a prominent role in their
education. They affect class chemistry,
can influence the choice of courses, and are something they seem to
notice. A bit over half of our students
do not believe that athletics enhances education at Williams, but only a
quarter thinks it harms education.
Moreover, our students generally think they can escape the detrimental
effects, assuming they exist, of athletics.
Only one-seventh of students (and 22% of non-athletes) feel their
educations here are impaired, speaking to a coping response. Students make the best of the situation, but
also may sense that their educational opportunities, if not lost, are not fully
realized either. These are, of course, only opinions, and may be mistaken. It is, for one thing, unlikely that the educational
effects of athletics are pervasive at the College, as students maintain, yet
are not affecting most of our students.
Faculty
perceptions of the educational impact of athletics bear an interesting relation
to student perceptions about the influence of athletics on the culture of the
college. Whereas students found general
problems with teams but think they can avoid most problems in practice, faculty
supports athletics in principle, but registers objections in practice. In general, faculty, like students, are well
disposed to varsity athletics. When
asked whether in principle varsity
athletics should be part of the educational mission of the College, 66% of the
faculty responded affirmatively; only 30% thought not, and 3% offered no
opinion. The pronounced majority in
support of athletics begins to melt, however, when the questions shift from
principle to practice.
For
example, the faculty expresses serious and widespread concerns about the
demands of athletics on scheduling. The
Division of the Day is not regulating athletics successfully, according to the
bulk of the faculty. Coaches believe
academic faculty commonly violates the Division of the Day; 33% of coaches
believe the violations by academic faculty are “very common” and 52% that violations
are “fairly common.” Academic faculty,
on the other hand, think coaches commonly violate the Division of the Day. 24% of the academic faculty think violations
by coaches are “very common,” 39% that violations are “fairly common,” for a
total of 63%. Moreover, a total of 57%
of all faculty – including coaches – think that the violations by coaches are
either “very important” or “important.”
Only 30% of the academic faculty regard the number of scheduling
problems raised by athletics as acceptable; 83% of coaches, on the other hand,
regard them as acceptable. The academic
faculty is concerned with the frequency and the reason for missed classes and
with the attitude of students when they miss classes. 87% of the faculty are “generally” or “sometimes” concerned with
the reasons varsity athletes offer for scheduling conflicts, and 66% of faculty
report varsity athletes are more likely than other students to presume their
scheduling needs will be accommodated.
Missed
classes, scheduling conflicts, and the sense of entitlement of some athletes
raises questions about the centrality of academics to some varsity athletes.
Nevertheless, the faculty is divided about the educational value of
athletics. 35% of the academic faculty
– and 100% of the coaches – believe that varsity athletics enhances the
educational mission of the College. 38%
of the faculty as a whole – and 42% of the academic faculty – believe varsity
athletics detracts from the educational mission of the College. 19% of the whole faculty believe that the
effect is neutral (2% are undecided).
Much of the faculty may believe that athletics enhances
the educational mission of the College, but only 3% of the faculty believe that
varsity athletes are generally more engaged than other students in our
courses. Exactly half of the faculty
believes that varsity athletes are generally as engaged as non-athletes, and
36% believe they are generally less engaged.
11% of the faculty have no opinion on the matter. The faculty also divides evenly on the
question of whether varsity athletes change class dynamics. 49% believe that they do; 51% that they do
not.
The faculty is evenly divided, in other words, between
two bodies of opinion. One body holds
that varsity athletics is enhancing the educational mission of the College, is
not interfering with class dynamics, and, while not producing more engaged
students, is not producing less engaged students either. The other body of opinion, which is about
the same in size, holds that varsity athletics is detracting from the
educational mission of the College, is influencing class dynamics, and is
associated with less engaged students.
Not all of the faculty falls into one of these two bodies; some – a
smaller portion – think the effect of varsity athletics is neutral or have no
opinion on specific questions. But the
broad symmetry of differences in opinion does not convey the underlying factors
that organize faculty opinions about varsity athletics.
The Committee considered the
correlation between, on the one hand, rank, term at Williams, gender, and
division, and, on the other, faculty views on the consequences of athletics at
Williams. We have found that gender
exerts a slight effect, rank exerts a somewhat greater effect, but the
influence of those factors pales besides that of the division of
respondents. We organized the responses
we received by division, counted the Athletic Department as a division unto
itself, and found a clear pattern.
The Athletic Department is at one
end point. Coaches detect few problems
with athletics. They are unconvinced
that the role of varsity athletics needs to be explored. Whereas 89% of the academic faculty think
the issue of varsity athletes is worth exploring, only 42% of coaches
agree. Coaches believe unanimously that
varsity athletics should be part of the educational mission of the College
(compared to 62% of the academic faculty) and that athletics enhances the
educational mission of the College. By
contrast to the rest of the faculty, coaches do not believe that scheduling
conflicts arise more often with athletics and overwhelmingly regard the number
of scheduling problems with athletics as acceptable (83% of coaches versus 30%
of the academic faculty), although they share some of the rest of the faculty’s
concern with the validity of the reasons students provide regarding
scheduling. Coaches, in other words,
present an enthusiastic portrait of athletes.
Athletics brings great benefits to the College and enhances education,
and achieves these advantages at minimal costs in terms of scheduling
conflicts. Moreover, coaches think they
cause less disruption to the academic faculty than the academic faculty does to
them.
The views of Division 3 faculty resemble those of coaches
on some scores and diverge on others.
Division 3 believes athletics contributes to the educational mission in
principle and, with some exceptions, in practice. 76% of Division 3 faculty believe that in principle varsity
athletics should be part of the educational mission of the College. 42% of
Division 3 believe athletics enhances the educational mission of the College in
practice, which is not far from the average for the faculty as a whole. But 33% believe that the impact is “neutral”
and only 22% that it detracts, with the first number being noticeably higher
and the second being lower than those for the faculty as a whole. 61% of Division 3 faculty think athletes are
about the same as other students in intellectual engagement in their courses,
only 27% think athletes are less engaged, and 42% think teams alter class
dynamics. Division 3 faculty is
concerned with scheduling issues in about the same proportion as for the
academic faculty as a whole, and is a bit more skeptical of the validity of the
reasons given by students for scheduling conflicts. On the whole, then, Division 3 faculty is friendly to
athletics. It expresses general concern about scheduling issues,
and is not convinced that it actually enhances the educational mission of the
college, but it does not see substantial costs charged to the educational
mission of the college by athletics either.
Varsity athletics seem like a good thing in principle, and is acceptable
in practice.
The views of Division 1 about athletics are more
critical. 61% think varsity athletics
should be part of the educational mission of the college. But only 38% believe that varsity athletics
actually enhances the educational mission of the College, and 51% of Division 1
faculty think varsity athletics detracts from the educational mission of the
College. Nevertheless, Division 1
reports slightly fewer scheduling conflicts with athletics than does the rest
of the faculty, is close to the rest of the faculty in the proportion that
finds scheduling problems with athletics acceptable (32%), shares skepticism
with the rest of the faculty about the validity of the reasons given for
scheduling problems, and is about equally bothered by the presumptuousness of
some athletes in expecting their scheduling needs to be accommodated. But only 33% of Division 1 faculty see
athletes as less engaged in classes and 42% think athletes affect class
dynamics.
The
experiences of Division 1 faculty, in other words, resemble those of Division
3. They find their athletes a little
less intellectually engaged than non-athletes, but otherwise describe a similar
reality: very similar percentages of the faculties in divisions 1 and 3 think
athletes influence class dynamics, think scheduling issues are common and
serious. What is different between
divisions 1 and 3 is the overall assessment of the value of athletics to the
College. About the same percentages
(38% versus 42%) think varsity athletics enhances the educational mission of
the college. But 11% of Division 1
versus 33% of Division 3 think the impact of athletics is neutral and 51% of
Division 1 versus 22% of Division 3 faculty think varsity athletics detracts
from the educational mission of the college.
Division 1 and 3, then, see a similar pattern of facts, with Division 1
issuing a severe and Division 3 a lenient verdict.
The views of the faculty in Division 2 differ from the
rest of the faculty. Division 2 faculty
is a bit less tolerant of missed classes
than is the rest of the faculty and finds athletes a bit more
presumptuous in expecting their scheduling demands to be accommodated, but
otherwise Division 2 faculty does not experience scheduling conflicts much
differently than the rest of the faculty.
But differences emerge starkly when asked about the impact of athletes
on the educational mission of the college in principle and in practice. Only in Division 2 is the faculty fairly
evenly divided about whether in principle varsity athletics should be part of
the educational mission of the College, with 51% believing that it should and
44% believing that it should not. For
the rest of the faculty, by contrast, 73% believe that in principle varsity
athletics should be part of the educational mission of the College. Only 26% of the faculty in Division 2
believe that athletics enhances the educational mission of the college, and 52%
believe it detracts from the educational mission. The figures for the rest of the faculty are, respectively, 48%
and 31%. The pattern continues when
faculty is asked about the intellectual engagement of varsity athletes. 60% of faculty outside Division 2 believe
that athletes are generally as engaged as or more engaged than other
students. Only 38% of Division 2
faculty agree. 54% of Division 2
faculty find athletes generally to be less engaged academically than other
students. 69% of Division 2 faculty
believe athletes affect class dynamics; only 42% of Division 1 and Division 3
faculty agree.
What
explains the differences between Division 2 and the rest of the faculty? They might bring different standards and
expectations to bear on questions of education, but we are skeptical of this
hypothesis. We believe that Division 2
experiences athletes differently, that it is encountering a different reality. It is the faculty in Division 2 that in good
measure are teaching our varsity athletes.
At least 66% of
students who were flagged as athletes – the Athletic attribute – when they
applied for admission to the College are Division 2 majors. In the graduation years 1998-2002, 23% of
the degrees awarded to “A” attributes were in Economics, 17% were in
Psychology, 13% were in Political Science, and 13% were in History. The pattern is at least as marked when we
consider enrollments. Using data the
College has collected on course selection by athletes who entered Williams
between Fall 1990 and Fall 1999 and focusing on departments that had over 5,000
total enrollments over the period, we find A attribute students make up these
proportions of enrollments in these departments:
|
Percent of ‘A attributes’ of the enrollments
of large departments from 1990-99 |
|
|
Economics:
|
31% |
|
Psychology:
|
30% |
|
Political
Science: |
28% |
|
History:
|
28% |
|
Art
History: |
25% |
|
Math: |
25% |
|
Biology:
|
22% |
|
English:
|
21% |
|
Chemistry:
|
19% |
The pattern is accentuated
when we see what percentage of four categories – female non-athletes, females
with an AA, male non-athletes, and males with an AA – majored in each of
them.
|
|
%
women majoring in |
%women
with AA majoring in |
%
men majoring in |
% men with AA majoring in |
|
Economics |
8 |
11 |
18 |
31 |
|
Psychology |
14 |
25 |
5 |
9 |
|
Political Science |
9 |
9 |
10 |
12 |
|
History: |
14 |
14 |
13 |
19 |
|
Art History |
14 |
12 |
6 |
4 |
|
Math |
5 |
5 |
9 |
4 |
|
Biology |
15 |
14 |
10 |
8 |
|
English |
19 |
13 |
13 |
8 |
|
Chemistry |
4 |
3 |
7 |
4 |
Taking the same departments
for the year 1999-’00, we can see the proportion of students in each of these
departments who are varsity athletes and tipped athletes.
|
|
Varsity Athlete |
Tipped Athlete |
|
Economics |
45% |
20% |
|
Psychology |
37% |
19% |
|
Political Science |
36% |
18% |
|
History |
37% |
17% |
|
Art History |
32% |
19% |
|
Math |
37% |
15% |
|
Biology |
34% |
14% |
|
English |