Perceived Differences Between Chicago and other Elite Universities

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
161

@CateCAParent - maybe I’m reading the list of top endowments wrong? To me, the main driver for wealth seems to be: prestige. The top endowment list for the private schools reads more or less like a ranking for prestige. Some of the schools have middling sports programs (Harvard, Columbia, etc.), some have negligible sports programs (UChicago, MIT, Wash U), and a few have notable sports programs (Stanford, Duke, Notre Dame).

But, aside from Notre Dame, all the wealthy privates have one thing in common: they are the country’s most eminent schools.

To me, it seems like Chicago’s options to grow its wealth are:

1.) Increase its eminence and its optics about eminence (e.g., move up in rankings)

2.) Invest billions to create a winning football or basketball team (e.g., Notre Dame or Duke)

Investing to create a middling sports program would be a curious decision indeed. Creating a big-time sports program seems too costly, and a risky use of resources.

162

I am not sure I agree with your definition of “middling” sports programs. It isn’t a question of how nationally ranked Harvard’s football team is. It is a question of whether sports on campus creates sufficient nostalgia opportunities to keep wealthy alums more connected and willing to open their pocketbooks for the long haul. The cost of running the programs just has to be less than the income they bring in. For small schools that is an entirely different equation. It is just easier to create nostalgia with multiple opportunities for Our Team to beat Them every year. A good old fashioned rivalry spanning generations is a beautiful thing for development offices. Small schools with middling sports programs have those, too.

Eminence is intertwined with sports traditions. Not always, but again - no coincidence that the Ivy League is a sports league. I think UChicago has decided it wants to have that Ivy flavor of eminence off the field. Well, for the Ivies it is a package deal. All I am saying is that it isn’t a bad thing. sports are part of building community. It brings in money and eminence both. UChicago can have it all - sports and devotion to learning for the sake of learning. No investment of billions required.

Columbia is an interesting example. Their fencing team is renown. Eminent, really. It is a wealthy sport, but not an expensive one. For those who participate, oodles of nostalgia opportunities. Seems like a great thing for Columbia overall to support fencing - if wealthy families feel tied to the school and perhaps donate more as a result.

163

My Lord, @CateCAParent , you may well speak truth about many an alum at many a school, but how lame is it that middle-aged and elderly alums, mostly men and mostly armchair athletes who never seriously tossed a ball, will be so fired up by football or basketball performances executed by young men who just happen to be wearing the old school colors (but could just as easily be wearing any other school’s colors) that they are moved to write big checks in consequence? --It amazes me that this would work at any school that considers itself to be a serious one, but in any event it would never work at Chicago. Lame!

164

It is human nature. It isn’t just sports. It is fraternities, robotics competitions, a particularly notorious teacher that everyone endures as a rite of passage. Ties that bind of all kinds generate loyalty. Give people more reasons to feel connected- the more you become part of their identity. they will want to demonstrate their loyalty going forward. Sports give off huge adrenaline hits - of course that has a life long effect of people wanting to feel good like that again. Donating reactivates those pleasure centers. Ok ok, I haven’t conducted that research - but I offer it up as a thesis idea for some neuropsych phd candidate somewhere.

People show loyalty and support in one of three ways: donating time, treasure or talent. Colleges need a lot of treasure. That is the alumni part. Time and talent are students and staff.

It is the same thing as having a family member survive cancer - so you donate to the American Cancer Society. You become loyal to the cause. You donate to a school because they did something that improved your life.

I don’t see it at cynical or small for people to feel loyalty to their school, or even for schools to manufacture opportunities for students to have nostalgia moments. It doesn’t make the student experience any less authentic or pure if the school understands the connection between community building → nostalgia → endowment-> eminence → more community building (repeat). Community is a big part of what a college should be offering - otherwise what is the point of a residential campus?

165

@CateCAParent Agree with many of your points, but be aware you are crashing a UChicago love-in. It’s a narrow playing field.

166

While I have a relative in UoC grad school, I have no idea why I follow these UChicago threads. I’m not intellectually curious. :smiley:

Don’t forget Northwestern.

167

But @CateCAParent - you are asking Chicago to build this from whole cloth. Chicago has no tradition in areas like fencing and squash. Starting such programs would cost tens of millions of dollars.

The schools that have such programs have significant history in this area. Starting such programs would cost a lot of money.

Here’s the thing about college sports: they are expensive. You need facilities, equipment, coaches need salaries, there’s lots of travel costs, recruiting costs, etc. etc.

I imagine many wealthy schools (like Chicago, Wash U, Emory, etc.) have done the calculations, and figured it’s simply not worth the investment.

For schools that have long histories with these sports (or boarding schools, like Andover and Exeter) they are part of the tradition, and part of the expectation of students/alumni.

Building this all anew - especially when there’s no guarantee the sports would gain traction, is folly.

In fact, on occasion some Ivy sports face a crisis in funding, and programs land close to the chopping block (I think Brown’s swimming or wrestling programs were examples of this).

In short, unless there’s history and tradition here, schools are better served making investments elsewhere.

[Edit]: I should add, I LOVE sports. Would love to see Chicago have a big time football program, or heck, even beat Harvard or Yale in Squash every once in a while. But building sports teams is hard, and lots of teams are already competitive in this arena.

As seen with Penn State Hockey or U. Rochester Squash, would alums really get excited about the likely result, which would be: the addition of a few mediocre sports that often get beat by the big wigs (in this case, places like Trinity or Yale squash)? I don’t know if that moves the needle. And that’s the likely outcome: lots of investment for mediocre sports teams that have no prior tradition or history.

That’s where Chicago should spend its money?

168

Here’s again, an alternate idea: let’s say it’ll cost Chicago $40M to start a good squash program - with top-flight tournament-level facilities, great coaches, recruiting, etc.

Instead, why not spend that money to create a great UChicago resource/community center on the south side? Encourage alumni to give back to it, have students and coaches helping the students, etc. That might create national news, and lots of good will.

There seem to be so many better ways to spend tens of millions, if Chicago had such resources at its disposal!

169

It’s not your general thesis about bonding and tribal feeling I doubt, @CateCAParent , but that this phenomenon must necessarily manifest itself in the form of a few big spectator sports. @fencingmom 's remark confirms that it could take other forms: this cc board! It seems group solidarity exists at Chicago after all. Incidentally, visitors to the Chicago board often accuse us of a tribal loyalty that they claim not to find on the boards of peer schools. And we manage to do this without spectator sports!

The American entanglement of spectator sports and learning is really the oddity here. Robert Maynard Hutchins is credited with saying that “a civilized man takes off his shirt in the middle of the day for only one purpose.” We can assume that that purpose was not to hurl a javelin or swing a bat inasmuch as he also said, “Whenever I have an urge to get some exercise I lie down and let the feeling pass.”

170

Like any university program, “athletics” really has to be evaluated and viewed within the context of the university’s philosophy, mission and identity. Harvard, for instance, views athletics as on par with other academic programs within Arts and Sciences. Coaching has tenured positions and endowed chairs, similar to other faculty:
"Harvard traditionally has considered athletics to be an integral part of the educational experience. Since 1951, the department’s budget has been included in that of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and many of its head coaching positions are endowed in the same fashion as are professorships. “What has always set apart Harvard athletics goes back to the model of coaching and teaching,” said Rakesh Khurana, the Danoff Dean of the College. ‘It’s really about coaching as teaching. It’s about scholar-athletes.’ "

(NB, this placement within Arts and Sciences excludes students in the professional schools from competing in NCAA. While such is typically not the case anyway, the theoretical possibility has also been eliminated.)

In contrast, UChicago does NOT integrate athletics into the academic program of the university. As a department within Campus and Student Life, Athletics reports up to the provost separately from how the academic side reports. And - small detail, perhaps - I believe that the athletic program is not officially sealed off from participation by professional school students, although no doubt the schedules for the latter are not compatible with NCAA athletics.

More substantively, UC might have a different vision of athletics from most D1 schools (see link below for the 2019 Aims of Athletics session where I got most of the following information). Provost Diermeier has stated that everything the university does is shaped by its identity as an institution committed to academic excellence. The university has always been very clear about this identity from its founding (although apparently not so clear about the date of founding, since that’s been open to debate at Chicago for awhile now). Importantly, “academic excellence” here has a specific meaning. W/r/t research, it is to shape and influence various fields of inquiry; w/r/t education, it is to graduate students who look at the world with “a different pair of eyes” and walk away with “habits of mind that will serve throughout your lifetime no matter which career or which future you pursue.” Deirmeier has clarified that when he says “everything the university does” is shaped by this identity, he’s talking about everything: from the teaching and educational structure to the study abroad program to its residence halls to the way they think about athletics. This seems very different to me from what Harvard does. At UChicago, athletics supplements, rather than integrates into, the academic side.

Similarly Diermeir defines “student-athletes” a tad differently from Harvard, which sounded a bit fuzzy with that “scholar-athletes” reference. He says they are first and foremost both “students and athletes.” They have to meet all the demands and expectations associated with their academic commitments, and then “on top of that” they have to meet all the demands required by their athletic commitments (training, practice, competitions). I think this means that there is no “give” or accommodation to favor one responsibility over the other. However, per Diermeier the data show that UC athletes not only tend to excel at both academics and athletics, but they also tend to rate their experiences at UC among the highest of any student group. This would strongly support why UC feels it has a great thing going with its athletic program as is.

But what does it suggest for changing up to D1, particularly for the more “revenue-enhancing” sports such as football or basketball? While these “students and athletes” compete in D3 for their athletics, they essentially perform in the “D1” category when it comes to their academic commitments. Is there room there to allow for D1 in athletics as well? That would be my primary question, not whether or not the program can generate a ton of revenue for the university.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=238&v=f2BOEXfkl5I&feature=emb_logo

171

You misunderstand me, @Cue7. I think maybe on purpose? I don’t think UChicago has to build new sports programs from whole cloth. It doesn’t need a fencing program per se or compete at a national level. You are moving the goalposts. (See what I did there? Hehe). All I am saying is that sports are good for alumni donations, which is in turn good for the school.

I am also just acknowledging that their existing, calculated trend of boosting sports recruiting and involvement doesn’t change who UChicago is or what it stands for. Stellar students who love to learn are frequently also athletes these days. The dumb jock trope doesn’t rule the day. So to get the cream of the scholar monks out there, athletics have to be part of the package. Exercise makes the brain work better.

Not even clear how any of the above departs from your stated priorities for the school. Feels like you are arguing for the sake of arguing (say it ain’t so!).

172

Lol. Yeah, if arguing were a sport, this thread is definitely D1.

I get the love-in. Actually- it sort of proves my point. People are devoted to their school and feel part of a community. That keeps them coming back and donate, too, I bet. It doesn’t have to be just from sports. But sports is definitely a tried and true way of developing the loyalty.

173

@CateCAParent - pardon if I missed this – if not asking to create sports like squash or fencing, or elevating sports to D1, what are you suggesting Chicago do?

174

I wasn’t suggesting it DO anything. My original post was just an observation that sports drives donations. Y’all took the ball and ran with it. (Sorry - too easy).

At most I am saying I get why UChicago is pursuing athletes more, despite being “academics first”. All part of the long game. (Dammit!)

175

For the record, I understood where Cate was coming from the entire time. And I hope her DC is admitted. (Class of '25?)

176

UChicago could build a top 10 squash program within 4 years. Top 5 after that. One great coach. Access to the Metro squash courts. The athletes would be of similar academic quality to the overall student body. Trinity did this via international recruiting. Harvard has now mastered that. The NESCACs aren’t as desirable. Princeton and Yale try internationally. Those are the only other schools that could compete for the top athletes. Each of those (except Trinity) gives 2 slots per gender per year. No scholarships.

Squash is an urban sport, and UChicago’s reputation combined with proximity to Chicago would be big draws.

Diversity too, especially with all the urban squash programs.

And yes, squash playing alumni would contribute!

177

@CateCAParent , I award you points for style.

178

:smiling_face: Me too! (‘26)

179

“ While these “students and athletes” compete in D3 for their athletics, they essentially perform in the “D1” category when it comes to their academic commitments. Is there room there to allow for D1 in athletics as well? That would be my primary question, not whether or not the program can generate a ton of revenue for the university.”

@JBStillFlying - for me and my sensibilities D1 is a deal with the devil. Sports scholarships and media deals change the dynamic too much, insofar as the students become employees and schools become dependent on the income. For me, academics do come first. Student athlete is great. Athlete student doesn’t serve the core mission of a university. It can be a great outcome for a particular student. But too often it isn’t.

But that is a discussion for a different thread.

I am curious to see how football-dependent universities handle the hit to their income if covid wipes out their season. State universities are looking at huge funding cuts as it is and don’t have hefty endowments to fall back on. Scary times.

180

@arbitrary99 - sure if the start-up costs are low, why not, start a squash program. It looks like metrosquash is a community center that’s fairly full, though? How much would rental costs and starting a M and W team be?

Also, in looking at it again, U. Rochester has a pretty good squash program - usually in the top 10. Is this on the radar? Like, this doesn’t move the needle for me, but is there a nice big squash donor base for Rochester? Or Franklin and Marshall?

Chicago has done this recently, though, with very little fanfare. Women’s LAX started a few years ago, but I don’t get the sense it moved the needle much - low attendance at games, not really much recognition. The program itself is great - the team wins like 80% of the time.

I’m not sure how that experiment would build momentum for other sports, but sure…

Here’s the question from a different angle, as @CateCAParent asserts how sports can drive donors:

Why don’t some of the ivies with smaller programs expand their offerings? Why doesn’t Penn or Columbia create hockey teams, or Dartmouth can go D1 in fencing? If these sports provide all these drivers for donors, why don’t these schools expand their athletic offerings? They already have club teams - why not enjoy a donation bump by making them D1?