- It's a great question!!! Vandy is a good move but I truly wonder how successful Diermeier will be at, say, raising money. Most presidents and chancellors don't care too much about the undergraduate program, except to the extent that it helps the top line :wink: They care a lot more about the quality of faculty.
JB–Very well said, and I couldn’t agree more. Cue7–Terrific question (I was thinking the same as I read JB)! Oxford, where the faculty in the subject that the applicant applies to study chooses the students–not a special “admissions office”–has a special note for American applicants. (my son applied to study English). They say, in essence:
‘We only want to know about your academic qualifications and potential. We don’t care about your extracurricular activities, we’re not interested in your “leadership potential,” we don’t care to hear your thoughts about how you’ll make the world a better place, or how your personality has developed in high school. Even though we don’t admit candidates on any basis but academic merit, somehow over the years we’ve managed to produce a few well-known actors, artists, writers, athletes (including world record breakers and Olympians), business leaders, and politicians [the current PM studied classics there].’ I wish UChicago would issue a similar statement in its application packet!
@JBStillFlying - Harvard Dean Gay’s message left me… puzzled. Is it really the job of arguably the best research university in the world to embark upon “education through athletics” and believe in the “transformational leadership of sport”?
Frankly, the messaging sounds very, very dated - like something Teddy Roosevelt would say. I understand, sports are a big part of Harvard’s heritage and legacy. And, unlike Chicago, there was no interruption in offering high-level sports on campus.
At the same time… times change! As Harvard is truly a global university, there are many, many activities that offer “transformational” leadership opportunities - not just sport. Volunteer opportunities, ECs, scholastic opportunities, etc.
I say this as someone who loves sports. I really do. But thinking there is something singular in sport - something you can’t find elsewhere - that means the most selective university in america needs to accept roughly 80% of those athletes (who pass a reasonable SAT bar) who apply… makes me roll my eyes.
The glorification of sport, and the conflation of it with the ideals of an elite, small research university, remain puzzling to me.
(Secondary point: the article says nothing about D1 sports offering more “transformational leadership” opportunities than D3 sports. Why not just have Harvard keep all their sports, and go down to D3? You can still “educate through athletics” at that level - arguably better than you can at the D1 level. And, if they want to “educate through athletics,” why not select people who seem like promising problem solvers and pattern recognizers, and then literally educate them - teach them - fencing or squash? Have them take their world-class pattern recognizing skills, and apply them to another endeavor. That sounds liberal artsy to me.)
So many problems with Dean Gay’s message!
Also @JBStillFlying - yes, I think Deirmeier will have his hands full at Vanderbilt! The issues there will just be very different. In some ways, Vandy has tried to converge with Chicago over the past decade - huge jumps in selectivity, a big emphasis on SAT scores and making the campus more intellectual.
But, Vandy’s heritage and current priorities are still quite different. Deirmeier will be overseeing a big-time sports program. Football and basketball occupy large parts of Vandy’s identity. The alum base is definitely different.
Should be interesting to follow!
Cue, you asked if there is something singular about sports compared to any other activity such that it deserves special consideration. I will argue YES, there are 2 things that are largely unique to sports and both of these things have critical value.
- Sports teach competition better than any other activity. Sports can also teach important values of perseverance, sacrifice and resilience, but these qualities are not as unique to sports as competition. And by competition, I mean testing oneself in a "mano a mano" battle against an equally determined foe all for the pure goal of victory. While winning a championship doesn't change society or cure cancer, it is impossible for a non-athlete to understand the arduous journey required, and the ultimate satisfaction (or despair), from beating (or losing to) another human being or team of human beings. Sure, there are other avenues of competition besides sports, but most of these competitions are either anonymous, not public, not directly confrontational, and don't involve a scoreboard where it is crystal clear who the winner and loser is .
- Sports are the ultimate embodiment of meritocracy, and perhaps the last remaining source of true meritocracy in our society. As mentioned, there is always a scoreboard in sports so there is no place for winners or losers to hide. Because of this, no coach who wants to win cares what your skin color look like, how rich or poor you are, how pretty or ugly you are, who your parents are, whether you are good at schmoozing, whether people like or dislike your personality, etc. because the only thing that matters is are you the best athlete who can help the team win, Now, one may try to argue that throwing or kicking a ball the best isn't really of any use to society in the big picture, but can we really find any other part of society where someone is almost 100% judged on their ability alone. I don't think so, and IMO the reason why our society pays so much attention to sports is because no other human activity offers the raw competition and pure meritocracy that sports offers.
- Hardly doubt that the message from the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences is somehow "outdated." Athletics has always played a big role at Harvard and I'm sure there are many, many intramural groups in addition to varsity. If there seems to be an inconsistency between what Harvard University offers as the top R1 in the world, and what Harvard College seems to encourage its undergraduates, one need only (re)read the Pinker article (start about a third of the way down, but the entire article is well worth a read even though it's from 2014). https://newrepublic.com/article/119321/harvard-ivy-league-should-judge-students-standardized-tests
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Princeton has done very, very well for itself - with no school of business, education, law and medicine. UChicago is just fine the way it is.
@zoom10 , you write eloquently and I think truly about the ethos of sports. I myself grew up in a time and place where Friday Night Lights was the biggest deal in town and I played enough of one sport, baseball, to understand the effects on character and one’s perception of life itself embodied in competition. Bravo. All true. It is especially true for younger youth, beginning in elementary school and culminating in high school. Being brave, coping with injury, facing and dealing with failure and even humiliation, coming to terms with one’s limitations, but also experiencing moments of pure beauty and ecstasy - these make you fuller and stronger and more confident of the future at a time when everything else in your life says only that you are a negligible child ruled by adults. Many a kid - I was one of them - lived his most intense life on a ball field during those days, and many a kid dreamed of a day when he would go all the way to the end of a path that would bring him to the plate some day in the bigs. We all failed - even the most talented kid I ever knew washed out in the end. But, more than that, one begins to glimpse, partly through the experience of sports itself, that there’s a more important and more complicated life outside the chalked lines of a field. That adult world outside the lines becomes in the end the truly tormenting, challenging, and interesting one. It’s the true future. Understanding it becomes the next mission in a mature life.
Anyone who ever played sports, at whatever level, is the better for it and sees the character-building things in them you see. We all also glimpse the unrealized possibilities of our own lost youth every time a wonderful moment happens on any playing field. Such things are to be cherished. Human experience is many things, glorious, tragic, humdrum. A full human being will experience and deal with each of them and take from each what each has to give. I believe Aristotle said that.
It seems to me that the apotheosis of sports comes in high school. By then what can be gained from them has mostly been gained. Yes, let a College like the U of C provide an array of programs, some of which can continue to fill the competitive purposes you described, others merely provide recreation and social contact. But to put in the time and training that D1 programs envision just isn’t compatible with the singular devotion to serious learning that exists at Chicago. You may have thought I was asking a rhetorical question in a previous post when I queried whether you would like to see a dilution of the intensity of the academic culture of Chicago. That was not rhetoric. With 20 percent of the student body composed of D1 recruited athletes generally comprising the lower portions of the academic talent pool and spending so much of their time in training and competition - how could that be possible at the U of C without dilution of mission and the segregating of the student body into those who play and those who watch? Ugh. That would be bad for both those groups. And it is not compatible with the Chicago ethos.
@Zoom10 - I totally agree with @marlowe1 - you very eloquently describe how sports teaches all sorts of skills, and is valuable experientially.
Having said this, like marlowe, I wonder: when are these experiences most important, and at what level?
Do you need to be a D1 level athlete to gain the leadership and competitive skills sport offers? Is the key time to develop competitive abilities and leadership skills during the ages of 18 - 22?
To me, believing in the “transformational qualities” of sports has nothing to do with having a large, expensive, resource-hungry sports plant in the middle of a small, elite university. The values could be maintained and promulgated in all sorts of ways. Heck, you could disband all the sports and, instead, encourage participating in a robust array of intramural sports.
And, by doing that, schools could widen the lens through which they assess “transformational” opportunities.
For some, sports are everything described above. For others, they are drudgery. By emphasizing sports so much, schools actually limit the array of diversity possible.
Here are some other non-academic, physical (and not physical) activities that offer all sorts of transformative opportunities, competitive or otherwise, that elite colleges value much less:
Camping/Hiking, Construction, Roofing/landscaping, first aid/emergency response, model un, mock trial, math league, chess, spelling bees, music (elite schools care less about those great oboe players, and more about the rowers), dance team, theater, all sorts of community service, martial arts, and on and on…
Again, I assert that the benefits found in sport are not singular in nature. They can be found in other endeavors, physical and non-physical. Elite colleges just care less about them.
And, even if sport WAS a singular experience - I assert the key benefits are for younger age groups - especially children and adolescents.
So, while Harvard is free to do what it wants, its emphasis on sport - for a small, elite school - seems misguided indeed.
Cue is right.
When my D first toured Chicago she was told that they wished they got more kids who had worked a part-time job. Her experience flipping burgers (she also trained the newbies) was very helpful in procuring “real” professional opportunities in college. It wasn’t her only EC but it was probably “stand-out.” And her experience kept her from remaining too much in the privilege-bubble; she worked under the direction of managers who were paying their way through college or feeding their families with these earnings. Her experience helped her procure part-time work and internships at UC.
My son took a manual labor job last summer and thoroughly enjoyed it. He worked groundskeeping at the local golf course while other kids did caddying or played on the team. It hasn’t hurt him in the least; in fact, it helped him procure a dream internship this summer (which, incidentally, will not pay as well as his manual labor job!).
Two examples of how some good honest work is highly valued by others for what it teaches you. Not everyone has to be the whiz-kid franchise-owner or golf star.
I totally agree @JBStillFlying - I’ve played sports all of my life (was never good, but I enjoyed a range of them), but these don’t constitute any of my most formative moments.
Honestly, my first job (working retail, of all things!) and learning a whole host of skills on the fly (how to manage up, how to manage, how to deal with screaming customers, security concerns, etc.) was a whole lot more formative (or transformative) than any sport.
To me, sports are still strangely artificial. Where else in life can you call a timeout?
Ummmmm, the sports are about money. Alumni donations, specifically.
Good point about sports’ teachable moments topping out in high school. So then why do colleges care so much about recruiting and fielding so many varsity teams? It isn’t about building character. Follow the money. Alums, especially those who played sports, continue to track their teams, stay connected to the campus, and donate. It ain’t rocket science. Rocket science doesn’t bring in the big bucks.
And that’s why the rich people sports continue to be important. Rich people donate. Sports are a critical part of building the endowment. Even if the donation isn’t overtly because of a sport, sports feed endowments. It is a pretty powerful feedback loop once established.
@CateCAParent - do schools really get big donations because of their sailing or squash programs? Or lots of donors cite the great ski program as a reason they give back? Maybe they do… but I just haven’t heard of this.
- The above comment proves Hutchins' point back in 1939. He and the trustees apparently foresaw the devolution of collegiate sports at our research universities. Hutchins wrote the following - for Sports Illustrated! - 15 years after UC's decision to shut down the football program. It summarizes his views nicely:
"The ancient Athenians were as crazy about sport as modern Americans are. So were the ancient Romans and the Renaissance Italians. So are contemporary Britons and Germans. But we Americans are the only people in human history to ever got sport mixed up with higher education. No other country looks to its universities as a prime source of athletic entertainment.”
@Cue7 - there are studies on it, yes. But do I have them handy? No.
It is true at the boarding school (or public high school) level, too. Sports drive donations- school identity is a all wrapped up in it. People get warm fuzzies around sports. My guess is crew and squash and the like generate huge nostalgia opportunities and they in turn generate donation opportunities for the people who participate in them.
Do I like that sports are intertwined with academics? No, but it is no coincidence that the Ivies are an athletic league and those elite schools plus Stanford have huge endowments. Hand in glove. Sports= money. UChicago’s morphing business plan over the years and growing emphasis on recruitment is a study of the phenomenon in and of itself.
Actually Bill Gates never came close to graduating from Harvard. LOL.
OK , here’s a start re: studying the connection between alumni giving and sports. It is old data (through 2011), but there is no reason to think new data would be any different. The study looks at the schools that have the best track records of alumni giving. Small schools with tight communities do well, and of the larger schools…
“The rest all share another trait – that magic combination of a strong academic reputation and a high-profile athletic program. Even the Ivy League schools have relatively strong and well-followed athletics (Cornell’s strong showing in the 2010 NCAA men’s basketball tournament serves as an example).”
But @CateCAParent - there are plenty of colleges that enjoy healthy finances or great fundraising without nearly the same sports prowess. Look at MIT, for instance, or Swarthmore, or Reed, or WashU, or Emory…
You may be confusing something that could be helpful for fundraising (a sports program) with something that’s necessary.
Of the schools you cited, only MIT has an endowment worthy of UChicago’s envy - at $17.1 billion.
I don’t think sports are necessary. I think the notion of D1 sports being a school’s reason for being is bizarre. But if UChicago wants to grow its endowment to the range of the uber elites - and reading through your posts that is something you think it is trying to do - sports-based alum donations does seem like an efficient way to do it. At a minimum it diversifies the income stream.
And btw, now that I have been poking around comparing endowments, UChicago’s is pretty darned respectable. Like top 15. It has a good thing going and a unique brand. Sports are compatible with it - a scholar incorporates exercise these days (the modern monk, right?).
Don’t fret @Cue7 - UChicago is going to continue to thrive, and get through the impending financial crisis better than almost every other school with its identity intact. Even with recruited athletes. I would bet my kid’s future college education on it. (Will that guarantee him a spot?)
I wonder how much the university has been getting in sports-related donations over the recent years?