Dear Colleagues,
As many of you know, the athletics budget will be presented as a future action item at the upcoming Board of Regents meeting on November 12 and 13. As a future action item, it will not be put to vote but will be discussed. Linked below is the memo and related materials. In summary, this discussion will be predicated on the validity of the following assumptions:
Assumptions
The following assumptions regarding the WSU Regents, President and leadership commitment to intercollegiate athletics support the financial options recommended below. Changes to these assumptions will change the recommended financial options.
- WSU’s affiliation with a top-level intercollegiate athletics conference and program is a key and strategic means of increasing institutional visibility on a national scale, to the benefit of all WSU students, faculty, staff and communities.
- WSU intercollegiate athletics is an essential element of the residential campus experience for the Pullman Campus, and understands that university support of intercollegiate athletics is an investment in the student experience that is essential to attracting and retaining students.
- The operation of intercollegiate athletics without membership in the Pac-12 is financially unfeasible.
We are gathering feedback in advance of this meeting. Thus far faculty have asked:
- Is there evidence to support these assumptions?
- Is the operation of intercollegiate athletics without membership in the Pac-12 financially unfeasible?
- Have other schools similar to WSU gone this route? If so, what were the outcomes?
- Would being the first school to depart the Pac-12 and moving to another conference demonstrate our commitment to academic excellence and our Land Grant mission? Would this offer a highly visible pathway to gain prestige and interest in WSU that is at least equivalent to the assumed advantages of remaining engaged as a Pac-12 member?
Relevant links are below. Please use the comment feature to add to this discussion.
-WSU Senate Executive Committee
When I saw this proposal for bailing out athletics (by using academic funds) I was appalled. This is the type of situation where the university can make financial decisions that end up putting us into serious problems down the road. In our most recent 10% cut effort, I lost my lab technician. These cuts led to the loss of a good paying job for someone at the beginning of their career. These cuts have led to the loss of productivity for my lab and it’s commitment to the land grant mission. The thought of losing a technician to bailout football is truly horrible. I can’t believe that this is even being considered.
What are our priorities, are we an academic institution for research and teaching, or a sports training facility?
Athletics has contributed to a budget deficit that has negatively affected teaching and research at WSU. If indeed we intend to remain a top-notch research institution, we can no longer privilege athletics over academics. Are we really aiming our ambition at remaining a feeder school for the NFL? Is this the mission of a land grant institution in Washington State?
The are some really good questions in regard to the underlying assumptions. Given how difficult it is to find start-up and other resources to hire faculty which we desperately need after the attrition of the last few years, as well as fund our aging infrastructure, how can the university justify spending $2-3million per year for athletics? Where would this money come from? Ok, get rid of the grand challenges, but that should then go back to the academic units from which it was taken from in the first place. I still don’t see a viable financial plan in place to get athletics viable.
Intuitively, the benefits of being a part of the Pac-12 extend beyond intercollegiate athletics. As a native Oregonian, WSU’s participation in this regional conference is what put the university on the map for me. If WSU were not a part of the Pac-12, it’s hard to imagine there is an alternate pathway to gaining the same kind of prestige and interest that is a result of remaining engaged as a Pac-12 member.
I also think the national recognition helps people realize WSU is a large research intensive university vs a smaller regional school not focused on research. I’m pretty sure national athletics exposure is why more of my meetings don’t include “Wow Washington State you’re far away.. Is it raining in Seattle today?” Which is still way too common..
I agree whole-heartedly that participating in the PAC-12 conference is an asset to WSU. I don’t think many are aware that Athletics actually pays the membership fees so that WSU can remain in the PAC-12. The Athletics Department also provides tremendous leadership opportunities, as well as academic opportunities, for our student athletes. As a faculty member on the Athletics Council, I have met and listened to many athletes who are using these opportunities to do great things. They are impressive in ways outside of their sport and add tremendous value to our university.
Aside from the actual value the Athletics Department adds to the university, the athletics programs also play a major role in why students decide to attend WSU. If we were not a part of the PAC-12 conference, WSU would not be nationally known and definitely not be the place it is today.
I support this proposal, especially given the cuts to all departments it is reprehensible that the athletics program has been allowed for so many years to rack up such large debts. It is clearly an unsustainable model. There is no proven benefit to the university in having an athletics program. I’m yet to meet a student that says the academic program played any role in their choosing to study at WSU. College sports is an outdated anachronism!
Peter, I think that you meant to start your comment with “I do not support this proposal…” The rest of your comments make it clear that you do not support it at all.
There has been no demonstration that the operation of a top-level intercollegiate athletics program or membership in the Pac-12 conference is financially feasible. The previous athletics administration left us with what will be over 100 million dollars in debt. The current athletics administrations is asking for 2-3 million dollars per year to be taken away from student learning and research and being instead spent on producing content for the Pac-12 Network. This is not our mission. See Shawn Vestal’s June 7 2019 Spokesman-Review article for salient details. “That means that WSU spends less on sports than any other school in the biggest five athletic conferences. Less than everybody else, but more than it has.” The NEXT STEPS plan still relies on imaginary “new revenues” that are neither identified nor guaranteed. The experience of WSU in the Pac12 is that other schools re-invest new revenue streams back into athletics, funding an arms race that we have lost. I ask the Board of Regents to please avoid the sunk costs fallacy. Please do not approve spending education and research dollars on creating content for entertainment TV networks. If intercollegiate sports must be played, let them have a self-sustaining budget. If it is not possible to fund a top level program using the revenue generated from said program, the inescapable truth is that we cannot afford a top level program.
Dr. Krueger’s proposal focuses on the notion that there is now strong scientific evidence supporting links between contact sports, particularly football, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The body of scientific evidence is also now quite clear that CTE leads to life-long brain damage and cognitive disabilities. These deleterious consequences run counter to the mission of higher education, i.e., to enhance the cognitive abilities of students and to promote life-long learning. However, in his memo to Faculty Senate Chair Dr. Turnbull, President Schultz avoided the substance of Dr. Krueger’s proposal. Instead, his case for supporting intercollegiate athletics (note, Dr. Krueger’s proposal is specifically about football, not intercollegiate sports more broadly) is based solely on conventional and well-worn arguments presented by presidents of higher education institutions past and present (and no doubt future). While his response based on economic, campus pride, alumni engagement, and other grounds may have merit, he has failed to address the substance of the argument against football. Therefore, it is important that the WSU Faculty Senate and WSU Board of Regents hold President Schultz to respond to the substance of the proposal rather than obfuscate the issue.
President Schulz failed to address the moral issue of brain damage done to our football players. No amount of publicity or money is worth our institution taking advantage students and doing life-long damage to their brains and joints. We should lead nationally in riding this cultural travesty from higher education.
I oppose using 2-3 million dollars from the general university budget to subsidize the athletic program. This money could be much better spent for academic purposes that will benefit students and faculty. Here in Pullman we are just too small to compete with large schools in LA, and Bay area, and Seattle in maintaining our facilities and keeping up with the cost of expensive coaches and staff. I believe that WSU student athletes will do well competing in safe sports in a less expensive, less prestigious conference. I agree with the comment above that football specifically needs to be eliminated. As Dr. Krueger pointed out, its is well documented that football causes brain damage in players.
The decisions made by the university to close the campus to students due to the risk of health complications from a global pandemic is extremely honorable.
However, the campus has become an athletics campus. Athlete students (I mean that as opposed to student athletes) have far more access to campus than other students.
Men’s sport! (football) is being played, but others are not.
Obviously this decision is revenue driven, but at what cost? NCAA athletics have been under a one sided microscope for 20 plus years regarding the ethical and fair treatment of athletes that perform for member institutions.
RIGHT NOW!!!! we are not concerned about concussions because we know the risk, and I suppose are not concerned about a virus that has led to the death of over 230,000 Americans because we know and assume the risk.
The university’s level of control over an athlete is more stringent than that of the employees.
WSU has an opportunity here. I am not for or against either option, but transparency needs to come out.
Go forth as an athletic charge in the PAC12, or step back and focus on academics.
The bottom line is that with recent changes to the NCAA involving players ability to earn will cause extreme increase in recruiting budgets, regardless of the President and AD’s attempt to tell us it is the end of the athletic “arms race”.
The financial impact of Covid will likely cause a reimagining of the plan to hit -130 mil before climbing out.
WSU needs to decide if they are a University or an amateur’s football club!
WSU leadership needs to remember that the mission of a land grant university is to educate, to conduct research and provide extension help to the community. Nowhere does athletics play a role in this mission. To use academic funds to keep a football program afloat is outright misuse of funds.
I support this proposal of leaving the PAC-12. The financial cuts to all departments it is reprehensible that the athletics program has been allowed for so many years to rack up is rehensible. Students don’t come to WSU because of athletic department. We are not UCLA or USC or Berkley. Allowing athletics to keep increasing the debt is clearly an unsustainable model. There is no proven benefit to the university in having an athletics program. Faculty have lost techicians, research support and inability to get start up because of the debt load of the athletics department. College sports is an outdated anachronism! Brain injury and football are linked.
I oppose diverting funds from academics to athletics. In a time where budgets are tight and will be tight for some time, this is an irresponsible decision. As Dr. Krueger has correctly pointed out, knowing the negative health effects on football players makes this morally irresponsible as well. For once let’s do the right and responsible thing, and lead the Pac.
As a member of Faculty Senate, and the Faculty Senate Advisory Committee constituents on the Vancouver campus often approach me about the seemingly unrestrained and/or mismanaged athletics program budget on the Pullman campus.
They ask how is that athletics have been so grossly mismanaged (if they ever were really “managed”) in the past.
They ask why branch campuses, like Vancouver, with no campus intercollegiate sports, are expected to shoulder Pullman’s budget deficit.
They ask how is it that individuals responsible for this mismanagement have not been removed from their positions.
They ask why, as part of a turn around of this budget problem, campus administration would rush into more multimillion dollar contracts for academic personnel when hiring for faculty has been frozen for years.
They ask when did university administration turn its back on the land grant mission of this university, and its focus on research, learning, community development and building throughout the state. Football and other competitive sports are not part of this mission, they say. Rather they are entertainment content to be bought and sold.
Why invest in football, they ask, when research into identifying relief for Washington citizens from climate change, coronovirus, economic and farm commodity price downturns see their funding cut, or denied.
Where is attention to health care, systemic racism, gender employment equity, diversity, and social justice they ask. Surely these are more important than Pac 12 football?
How can we trust university administration to address problems associated with university growth and development across the state when they seem so focused on doubling down on what is clearly a losing financial venture, athletics on the Pullman campus?
How can they have confidence in university administration and leadership that seems more interested to promote circuses than scholarship?
How can the university morally support sports that place student athletes in situations where they may suffer life changing, even life threatening injuries?
How can university administration and leadership taut “shared governance” while advocating for more and more spending on athletics while not addressing university concerns over the mounting financial deficits and outright dangers of an expanding athletic program?
Which academic program will be shut down so that the university can pay off its liability when a student dies from traumatic brain injury sustained while playing football?
As you can see, constituents on this campus are out spoken. I would say they tend to be more supportive of research, scholarship, teaching, and learning, the core roles of a land grant university such as WSU. They prickle at the thought of throwing good money after bad, especially when university support for research, scholarship, teaching, and learning has been withdrawn and/or diminished for years following the first announcement of an athletic program financial deficit. These faculty have sacrificed and waited patiently for the university to turn the corner and move forward.
Instead, if the university can be compared to an automobile moving toward a desired destination, it has stalled just before the turn and has remained sitting so long at the side of the road that all the tires have gone flat. Is this the best way forward for the university in the dynamically changing 21st century?
After the fact I notice this typographical error in one statement of my previous post . . .
“They ask why, as part of a turn around of this budget problem, campus administration would rush into more multimillion dollar contracts for academic personnel when hiring for faculty has been frozen for years.”
This should read “. . .multimillion dollar contract for ATHLETIC personnel when hiring for faculty has been frozen for years.”
My mistake, and I apologize for any misunderstanding. Thank you.
Leaving PAC-12 is a direct answer. The statement or assumption that through the athletic conference to improve academic partnership is highly questionable. The academic partnership (with other institutions) are based on the culture, the professor, and the student, not the sports.
We do not have to have “Big TIme” sports programs to have college athletics or to make WSU “Great Again”. The Tail is wagging the Dog and it needs to change. Below are some interesting links and thoughts on the subject. CR
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/01/a-path-forward-for-reforming-college-sports/
….”commercialized college sport has produced pressures that challenge the academic integrity of institutions of higher education, the ability of athletes to get a real education, propelled out-of-control spending, eliminated basic rights for athletes that are afforded to other students, and failed to protect college athletes from health and welfare risks.
The United States is the only country in the world that has a significant portion of elite athletic development and commercialized sport embedded within its education systems. Consider that ten of the biggest outdoor sports stadiums in the world (excluding auto racing venues) are American college football stadiums. None of the largest ones are NFL stadiums.
there are several reasons why it needs to change:
(1) An overwhelming majority—98 percent—of all athletics programs spend more than they make, requiring mandatory student fees and general fund subsidies that prompts tuition increases and more student debt;
(2) Excessive staff salaries and expensive building sprees for lavish athletes-only facilities that isolate them from other students and the college experience;
(3) The NCAA doesn’t use its power and resources to address the health and safety needs of college athletes;
(4) Academic fraud and other academic improprieties within athletic departments and extensive recruiting of athletes who do not meet admissions standards threaten academic integrity; and
(5) Outdated amateur rules prevent athletes from exploiting the rights to their own names, images, and likenesses, or seeking work available to non-athlete students.”
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/06/how-college-sports-can-survive/
…..”It is a much better strategy to reduce the funding of a sports program than to announce its demise before taking other needed financial steps. While no schools have announced moves like this, there has been discussion for greater regional competition versus widespread national competition to reduce costs.”
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/03/how-college-sports-turned-into-a-corrupt-mega-business/
…..”several other universities have also dropped football, including the University of Seattle and the University of Denver. Getting out of that costly extravaganza is feasible, although a university president who proposes it must be ready for fierce opposition.”
……”Consider the tale of Ray Watts, president of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Football is almost a state religion in Alabama, but UAB wasn’t very successful and program costs were heavily subsidized by student fees and the university’s general budget. In 2014, looking at a bleak financial picture, Watts decided that the money football was absorbing would be better spent on academics and announced that the university was dropping the sport.
Getting out of that costly extravaganza is feasible, although a university president who proposes it must be ready for fierce opposition.
Poor President Watts—he hadn’t counted on the ferocious opposition to his pro-academic priorities. He was roasted in the press, excoriated by the alumni, and even the faculty lashed out with a vote of no confidence. To save his hide, Watts reversed field. After a fundraising drive brought in $20 million, he announced that football would be back in 2017. It is back, and so are the high costs.”
I support the proposal of leaving the PAC-12 and am opposed to the idea that funds could be diverted from academic programs to prop up a football program that has been consistently in the red. The university’s primary goal should be academic and with the pandemic, there have already been significant cuts across departments. Faculty have lost technical staff, research support and more. WSU needs to be encouraging of new faculty and research and innovation endeavors, not hobble them to prop up a failing sport institution that leaves its players with significant neural injury (something not in question but was sidestepped by the president’s response). It’s time to knock back some of that pride and look at the facts.
It seems that we need to be mindful of where we are at the present time in order to make a responsible, equitable decision. COVID-19 has upended our lives, jobs, and unfortunately our investment in public activities such as observing sports in large groups. It has also raised havoc with budgets, placing enormous pressure on colleges on the WSU campus to pick up the slack with less funding and fewer staff/faculty. To ask for more from academia to fund athletics seems a very big ask, particularly in the face of an unknown future and uncertainty if/when the sport of football will generate the funds needed to maintain or restore its independence. It really seems like it’s time to look at this from a “right now” and “in a few years” standpoint to determine the value of further depleting the sustainability of academic programs to support a sport. What does football actually contribute to the overall mission of WSU as a university?
I second the two main points being made in this thread: 1) WSU should NOT diverge funds from its academic and extension mission to an Athletic program that is NOT self-sustainable (it hasn’t been and it hasn’t presented a clear and concrete plan about how it could become self-sustaining), and 2) Professor Krueger’s proposal was very clear and specific about the well-documented brain and joint damage to college football athletes, and, thus, the merit of the proposal needs to be evaluated based on the scientific evidence at hand.
1. Is there evidence to support these assumptions?
Assumption 1: Aside from the general prestige benefits that ostensibly flow from being a conference member and associated with the Pac-12 Conference’s cachet (benefits that are difficult to quantify), the primary mechanism through which national exposure occurs as a direct consequence of athletics is, of course, televised games. From 2016-19, ~60% of WSU’s 52 football games (including postseason bowl games) and ~20% of its 126 men’s basketball games aired on a national network. As well, five of the six 2020 football games (including the completed contest against Oregon State) are scheduled to air on national TV. Aside from these sports, national TV exposure for WSU athletic programs usually occurs only if they qualify for an NCAA championship.
Assumption 2: Pope & Pope (2009) (https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27751414.pdf) found that a university’s athletic success is correlated with a short-term increase in the quantity and quality of undergraduate applications it receives (where “success” is measured in terms of a football team’s ranking in a season’s final Associated Press poll, and a men’s basketball team performance in the NCAA tournament). Typically, this success–and the corresponding enrollment outcomes–are not sustainable. The more ephemeral material and cultural impacts of athletics are debatable. Certainly, there is a sizable segment of people affiliated with WSU (students, faculty/staff, alumni, community residents, etc.) that derives meaning and enjoyment from WSU sports, and the vital economic relationship between WSU football and Pullman has been laid bare by the pandemic. But, maintaining this element of the campus experience, especially in its present form, likely comes at the cost of (further) alienating those who are dissatisfied, at least to some degree, with the relationship between sport and higher education in general, or at WSU in particular.
Assumption 3 is addressed below.
2. Is the operation of intercollegiate athletics without membership in the Pac-12 financially unfeasible? (This question speaks to the third assumption referenced in the materials).
The wording here should probably be amended to read, “The operation of intercollegiate athletics ***in its current form*** without membership in the Pac-12 is financially unfeasible.” Athletic departments can and do operate with smaller budgets, but those athletic departments either 1) rely more heavily than WSU does on university subsidy to maintain a large (NCAA Division I-size) athletic department, or 2) compete at lower divisions of the NCAA or in other intercollegiate sports associations (e.g., NAIA). Leaving the Pac-12 but continuing to compete in NCAA Division I (which requires a university to sponsor a minimum of 16 sports) would likely mean a smaller total athletics budget, but a larger total outlay from the university to support that budget. For instance, in 2018-19, WSU Athletics received about $5.5 million in university support and had overall expenses of roughly $76 million. By comparison, in the Mountain West Conference (the major Division I athletic conference in the western US other than the Pac-12), no university had expenses greater than $56 million. But, each university also received between $14 million and $41 million in institutional support (source: https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/). Over in Moscow, the University of Idaho’s athletic budget is only about $20 million, but the university covers over half of it. The point here is that changing conference membership and leaving all else the same would reduce athletics-generated revenue and, in turn, would likely require increasing—by orders of magnitude—the amount of institutional support athletics receives to make up the difference. Changing conference membership while also limiting institutional support would require more profound changes to the athletic department.
3. Have other schools similar to WSU gone this route? If so, what were the outcomes?
No university has independently removed itself from “Power 5” status, though some universities have changed their conference memberships within the Power 5 (e.g., the University of Colorado leaving the Big 12 to join the Pac-12). The University of Idaho recently moved from the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS, a.k.a. Division I-A) to the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS, or I-AA), though this did not require a major change in conference affiliation (https://www.idahostatesman.com/sports/article193646994.html). In 2014, the University of Alabama at Birmingham cut football entirely, but reinstated it just five months later after a groundswell of public support (https://www.si.com/college/2018/12/18/uab-blazers-return-boca-raton-bowl). Neither of these institutions nor their respective situations are precisely similar to WSU, but there are perhaps some general lessons to be learned from their experiences.
4. Would being the first school to depart the Pac-12 and moving to another conference demonstrate our commitment to academic excellence and our Land Grant mission? Would this offer a highly visible pathway to gain prestige and interest in WSU that is at least equivalent to the assumed advantages of remaining engaged as a Pac-12 member?
I don’t think this question can be meaningfully considered without a more detailed alternative proposal on offer. Given the intimate connection between big-time athletics and land grant institutions (after all, there are three other land grant universities in the Pac-12, and nearly all land grants are football-playing NCAA Division I members), I hesitate to assume that any drastic reduction in WSU’s athletic expenditures and status would produce the desired effects, at least not without careful consideration of how the institution could successfully rebrand itself. For better or for worse, large public universities are associated with athletics. Also, as I noted above in response to Item #2, simply moving to another conference (assuming that is in itself feasible) and leaving all else equal will likely require at least a short-term increase in institutional financial support. These queries appear to be motivated by healthy skepticism about the need for just such a proposed increase in support, so I would caution against assuming that departing the Pac-12 is a quick and easy solution, or even a solution at all.
Finally: the report developed by the Faculty Senate at Eastern Washington University (https://www.scribd.com/document/446964135/Athletics-Funding-FO-Report), while not directly applicable to WSU’s situation, provides an interesting overview of possible alternatives to the status quo.
Thank you for your measured response to each of these. I learned a great deal and hope others do not reduce this argument to flash points. University budgets are complex and football is ingrained in the culture of America and American universities. I understand there are conversations to be had about the culture of the game, the safety, and how players are treated. I think it’s long overdue to force the NCAA to fundamentally adjust its practices and policies. And maybe it is time for amateur athletics to branch out of American academics. These conversations should continue. I’d also like to hear from our students on these matters. We assume a great deal about why they are here – we should ask them 🙂
I am unaware of what has been proposed in terms of money being shifted from academic programs to athletic programs, so perhaps my comments won’t be on target, but I think it’s important to consider the student athletes involved. As a faculty member on the WSU Athletics Council, I have met a number of student athletes and have been uniformly impressed by all of them. They aren’t athlete students; they are student athletes. Only a rare few of them will go on to become professional athletes, and WSU athletics is well aware of this. Everyone I’ve met who is involved in athletics has done their best to help a very diverse student athlete population not just to graduate but to understand and have the tools to succeed in life. For many of these students not as fortunate as a lot of WSU faculty, who grew up in middle-class or upper-middle-class families that understood the value of a college education, athletics has been a pathway to a college degree and a better life, and this is especially true of our football and basketball players. Many young boys dream about becoming a professional football or basketball player, and this leads many of the talented ones to college. I doubt they would obtain a college degree otherwise. The athletics budget was on track to start recouping expenses incurred under a different president and a different athletic director. Pat Chun, our current athletic director, is a very impressive person, and it goes without saying that but for COVID-19 all of us, including athletics under Pat’s guidance, would be in a more fiscally sound position, but I don’t think we should throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water. I respect the PAC-12 (although I do have reservations about the NCAA) and would be very sad to see us leave it.
I am opposed to the diversion of academic funds to the athletic program. I have never understood how moving to the PAC 12 could ever be sustainable and I do not believe it will ever become sustainable. The assumptions about the benefits of being in the PAC 12 do not hold up to scrutiny.
I don’t personally value college sports, but would only support cutting sports if they are grossly financially unsustainable, which appears to be the case. Use of academic funds to ‘bail out’ such a program is directly in opposition to our institutional goals of higher education and extension.
I am totally opposed to using academic funds to continue to bailout our athletic program. Our academic units across campus are already under funded and insufficiently supported. Many of us are teaching and conducting research in buildings that are inadequate and are literately crumbling around us. I appreciate the importance of having a university athletic program for our student athletes, student body and community but its support should not continue come at the expense of the university’s academic mission.
I am fully opposed to again bail out the athletic department by using academic funds. The athletic department has already accumulated about 100 million in debt which was put on the shoulders of the academic units. Roll over contracts ensure unsuccessful coaches millions of dollars for years after they were fired. At the same time the academic units have to break even which has resulted in the closure of programs, reduction of faculty lines in many departments, noncompetitive support for new and existing faculty, and a crumbling infrastructure. We would be happy to tour the Regents through buildings like Heald or Abelson Hall, where research animals die because of contaminated water and students and faculty get sick because of inappropriate air conditioning! Unfortunately, those issues never make it on the agenda.
I am struggling to fully understand the relationship between the proposal to draw $2M-$3M annually from the university’s general budget to prop up a debt-ridden athletics program (with no hard stop date, apparently), and the proposal to leave the PAC-12. Is one predicated on the other in such a way that if the Board of Regents voted no to the use of general funds for athletics that WSU would be forced to leave the PAC-12, thus entering the “financially unfeasible” realm indicated in point 3? It seems that athletics has already crossed that threshold.
Regardless of the relationship between the two, I am adamantly opposed to the use of university general funds for the purposes outlined here. Are we seriously entertaining the wishful thinking that WSU athletics will magically begin generating self-sustaining revenue in two to three years? I am leery of a permanent athletic subsidy that will make WSU’s academic endeavors and aspirations even harder to pursue and attain. And it is unconscionable that campuses other than Pullman would be required to shoulder the burden for a project from which students and faculty on those campuses derive no direct benefit.
If we are worried about students who might not otherwise attend college without athletic recruiting and scholarships, as my colleague above rightly points out, why doesn’t WSU offer more need-based academic scholarships and identify populations of high school students that could benefit the most from them? Why should such support be predicated on athletic talent?
Lastly, I ask what the administration would support if the tables were turned and athletics were somehow running a surplus. Would athletics be required to subsidize academics? It seems unlikely.
Washington State University has a responsibility to support academics. The Drive to 25 represents the widespread value that is placed on research. Continuing to remove funding from the sciences is in direct opposition to this drive and will result in significant damage to many programs. The Land Grant mission of this University is at risk of being replaced by what is perceived as a necessary part of the student experience. Athletics will continue to exist in many forms despite cuts, but research will not if budgets continue to get smaller each year. Some graduate students, laboratory technicians, and postdoctoral researchers with families already receive state assistance because current salaries are below living costs. Are these really the people who should be first on the list to have funding taken away so that the university can afford to pay million dollar salaries to coaches?
The message provided with such an action for the WSU Athletics would be that athletics is more important than the academics at WSU. This support falls outside the main stated missions of WSU, the reason WSU exists is for teaching, research and extension. In contrast, all Colleges on campus are requested to take the same level cuts in budget to help the WSU budget situation. To exclude Athletics in the reduction exercise sends the message to everyone at WSU and the State, that Athletics is the most important activity and component at WSU according to the WSU Administration and Reagents. Is this the best place to be if you are one of the faculty that do the teaching and research? Perhaps a bigger concern for the Reagents, is due to the current world situation, why are we having this discussion.
As some who worked at Penn. State in the mid to late late 1990’s I fully understand the potential value of Athletics in recruitment and visibility (as well as the power it has to bring everything crashing down!)
Here at WSU we have been operating an economically unsustainable athletics program for well over a decade – to the severe detriment of our general funds. Rather than giving Athletics another bail out it this not a golden opportunity to finally make them work within a budget that is not in deficit (or at least would not be under normal circumstance).
As far as I can recall Athletics has bot run <$7M in the red annually for over a decade, while during the same period the academic colleges have had to make often draconian changes to stay within budget – and now are being asked to do so yet again.
A high profile athletics program can be a double edged sword – what are we trying to highlight? If we continue to strip millions of $'s out of academic colleges and into Athletics, WSU won't have anything left worth drawing attention to……
Facing severe fiscal challenges for years, central administration has been telling academic units repeatedly that they “need to live within their means.” The same should apply to athletics. Note that the proposed $2-3million to be allocated to athletics is about the amount of one employee’s salary, the previous football coach. We cannot afford to further subsidize football at the expense of students. It is unfathomable during this pandemic and with the upheaval it will entail for universities in years to come that WSU is considering this kind of expense for intercollegiate athletics.
I think that it is already bad enough that we have to maintain and continue discussing the issues of the Athletic department deficits and how that affects and has affected WSU finances. If we divert funds from our main mission, which is Academic (this is still an academic institution after all) to continue the stream of entertainment, then we are adding insult to injury. Why don’t we try to divert $2M or $3M to the departments to improve our research/teaching infrastructure, namely buildings that are literally falling apart? I think that if this is the direction that WSU wants to go, we need to consider seriously changing our mission statements and prioritize entertainment instead of education and research to improve our community, state and world. I am not working at an institution to get more likes on Instagram or views on ESPN.
Students, faculty, and staff expect WSU to have its first commitment be to providing the academic experience.
Given especially that only students on the Pullman campus get any real benefits, this will likely increase the tension between campuses. Students in Vancouver already feel that Pullman is the first priority of WSU and cutting academic funds from all campuses to provide for an activity on a single campus is a bad system decision.
Many of us are lifelong sports fans. We enjoy sports as entertainment. We would miss attending PAC-12 contests with our friends and family. However, the reality is that WSU exists to educate and conduct research that will benefit society. WSU does not exist to entertain—that is not our mission.
I challenge the notion that “WSU intercollegiate athletics is an essential element of the residential campus experience for the Pullman Campus.” Although I have a lot of respect for the talent and dedication of our student athletes, I disagree that a football, tennis, or baseball team is essential to a college education or a valuable campus experience. We need only look to the many well-regarded universities in Europe and the UK to find examples to the contrary.
What is more, perhaps we should change our “residential campus experience” for the better by not subjecting a subset of our student body to the serious injuries some of our sports incur. Let’s lead in showing that we find life-altering brain injuries to our students neither “entertaining” nor acceptable.
I would also challenge the oft-stated presumptions that the national attention the athletics department brings is necessarily beneficial to WSU’s brand and that the athletics department is directly responsible for attracting more students and increasing student retention. Our logo may be popular, but I find it hard to believe that our sports program plays a large role in student retention across the WSU system. I don’t see how attending a football or basketball game helps a struggling student in Pullman, Tri-Cities, or Vancouver develop the scholarly tools needed to complete a term paper or contribute meaningfully to a class discussion. If we care about student retention enough to suggest that athletics might play some small role in it, then let’s put our money where our mouth is and redirect the money that goes to PAC-12 athletics to retention efforts aimed at improving the success rate of students who are struggling despite working hard. This seems a much better investment in retention than sinking more money into an athletics department that only goes further in debt.
We can maintain athletics on campus by transitioning to club sports, where the focus is on the beauty of sport rather than securing the next big cable sports channel deal. We already have successful examples of club sports on campus (women’s rugby, if I’m not mistaken), and we can expand in that area. The state-of-the-art facilities that have been built for football can be repurposed for athletes in all club sports to serve a larger number of student-athletes in Pullman.
As we look forward to the challenge of meeting our mission as a land grant university while living in a changed world of decreased enrollment and reduced funding from state and federal sources, perhaps the time is right to get out of the sports entertainment business altogether and refocus on our mission—education, research, and outreach. Surely that is where we can provide the greatest return on WA citizens’ investment in WSU, which is what all of WSU’s stakeholders (alumni, students, taxpayers) should expect of us.
WOW. Just WOW.
This is ludicrous. Taking 2 to 3 million from academics to subsidize the history of bad management in the athletics department in order to support the status quo is administrative malpractice. Others have said it, so it need not be repeated that the missions of the land grant college may include athletics, but it does not include subsidizing a minor league for professional sports or providing content for commercial media organizations like ESPN and the Pac-12 Network.
All but a few universities in the US lose money on their intercollegiate sports programs – typically in the range of 2 million per year. When viewed as a marketing program for an operation the size of this university, that is not an outrageous amount of money just viewed as a marketing budget. But that does not seem to be what is going on here – rather we are pouring tens of millions down a hole chasing past debts and a future financial payoff from athletic success that is not realistic in this marketplace. Taking money from what is our actual mission as a public university on this fantasy surely is an improper use of public funds.
The fact that this move is rationalized on the back of these “assumptions” belies the falseness of this process. The university is prepared to tell the Regents:
• WSU intercollegiate athletics is an essential element of the residential campus experience for the Pullman Campus, and understands that university support of intercollegiate athletics is an investment in the student experience that is essential to attracting and retaining students.
Yet, there is zero new revenue from ticket sales because attendance is prohibited! So big time athletics is an essential part of the campus experience, but the campus can’t experience it!
This move to take from academics to subsidize the athletic corporation is poorly defended in the Pearson memo, but it is indefensible in principle.
The proposal certainly represents a significant barrier to the drive for 25, unless the drive to 25 was meant to be all about athletics. I am completely opposed to supplementing athletics with other university funds. Athletic programs are not sustainable under the current fiscal assumptions, so it would be throwing good money and resources after bad to prop those programs up.
I am truly appalled! If we are concerned that our primary route for attracting students and public attention is through the PAC-12, we have truly failed as an institution. To even consider requiring significant sacrifices to the basic mission of the university—teaching, research, and outreach—to support an athletic/television program that cannot seem to find a way to sustain itself, is to admit that our priorities have shifted away from that basic land-grant mission. Let us treat this crisis as an opportunity to re-align our budgets with our values. Let us consider bringing the athletics program into the fold of the academy (see, for instance, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/09/07/college-sports-major/), where it can be a harmonious part of the mission, rather than treating it as a cash cow that never quite pays off.
While I understand that Pullman alumni are attached to the nostalgia of crisp autumn sporting events, it is wrong that the academic budget of the university subsidize this extracurricular indulgence. The state governor’s salary is only 6% of WSU’s football coach! (https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/wsu-cougar-football/wsu-coaches-nick-rolovich-and-kyle-smith-taking-temporary-salary-reductions-as-part-of-cost-containment-measure/#:~:text=When%20he%20was%20hired%20in,with%20the%20school%20last%20March).
It is time to realign the role of athletics within this land-grant university to the benefit of students and taxpayers.
Stanford, an elite academic AND athletic institution, cut 11 varsity sports this year because of similar “structural” issues within its athletic dept budget: https://news.stanford.edu/2020/07/08/athletics/. Let’s shrink WSU’s non-elite athletics program and move on to existential issues listed repeatedly above that really matter to our students, faculty, and staff, not to mention the citizens of WA.
Supporting college sports is an important part of a well-rounded university experience. However, the support WSU has given is quite clearly way too much. It is appalling to think that 2-3 million additional dollars per year will have to be taken from academic departments to support the sports program. Withdrawing from programs such as the Pac-12 and reducing the scope of the athletic program is clearly the correct thing to do.
Since joining WSU in 2004, I have experienced several rounds of deep and painful budget cuts (with an ongoing 10 % reduction). The majority of these cuts had noting to do with financial shortfalls in my unit (Institute of Biological Chemistry) or college (CAHNRS). Over the years we (CAHNRS faculty) have lost many of our support staff and technicians. If WSU is taking the “Drive to 25” seriously, successful academic faculty (achieving net-positive cash flow through grants) should not be asked to continue to bail out departments and units that do not appear to be capable of managing their finances sustainably. It is time for tough decisions to shrink the athletic department’s spending (since increasing the income has obviously not worked).
I am working for WSU since the early 2000’s. Over all this years I have seen substantial cuts for academic and research programs. I have witnessed loss of valuable support for our academic programs.
I have also witnessed the increasing expenses for sports programs.
WSU claims to be a world class institution, I am sorry to say that the last decade felt the the needed support to create and maintain such a claim has evaporated. To me it feels like the university values sport over academic programs and I disagree with this. Sports should not be the highest priority for a university.
If I could have a football player be my research assistant and a basketball player be a peer tutor in my classes, I might just get on board with this idea. If we are going to use academic money to fund sports, let’s have sports give back to academics.
At a time when we are seeing science equated to ‘fake news’ and suggestions that the nation’s top infectious disease expert have his head on a pike, as a community of teachers and scholars, we need to be seriously promoting the realignment of education as a top priority in this country. This is an opportunity for top-tier research universities, like WSU, to take the lead. Why is it that I work in a lab where the eye wash stations, if activated, drain directly out on the floor? Why is it that I work in buildings that are so out dated, I frequently have to rescue research material, years in the making, from power failures, rooms overheating, and contaminated water systems? World class?
Increasingly urgent is the need to understand the impacts of, design and implement solution for, and educated people about the global changing climate. Whether or not you believe it is human induced, doesn’t really matter anymore – it is happening. I see my colleagues all across campus working passionately to contribute in so many innovative ways. Why would leadership of WSU not being doing everything it can to support us, rather than seeming to prioritize an athletics program that is not? World class?
Being a student athlete as part of the university experience is great – promoting healthy, active lifestyles, the thrill of competition, and the rewards of team work are important. But if we are not seeing the long-game here, how many more generations will even be able to participate?
The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) is currently undergoing an “exercise” for a cut of approximately that same size in the CAS budget for next fiscal year. Meaning, funding is being cut from academic departments and scientific research to bailout WSU athletics which has been consistently in debt for years. The current athletics administrations are asking for 2-3 million dollars per year to be taken away from student learning and research and being instead spent on producing content for the Pac-12 Network. WSU is a land grant university, and the mission of a land grant university is to educate, conduct research, and provide extension help to the community. Does relocating 2-3 million dollars from academic programs to WSU athletics support that mission?
Fix your priorities. I am an alumnus and current graduate student at WSU Pullman but the way WSU has treated students and researchers is appalling. Research is being conducted in previously condemned buildings that never received full updated remodeling and are falling apart, students are taking classes (pre COVID) in labs that aren’t adequately equipped. But the athletic department has all the equipment they need. Your first priority is meant to be your students and the quality of education they receive, and as a land grant university, your second priority is to conduct accurate and groundbreaking research. Fix your priorities.
I am an emeritus professor who continues to operate a research program, and I am appalled by the proposal to support the football program using academic funds. Perhaps more relevant to this issue, my wife (a WSU alum) and I have been major donors to WSU in the past 5 years: our donations total to high 6-figures. We have already committed in writing to my home department (School of Biological Sciences) more large gifts for early 2021 and beyond. However, we retain the right to reverse course and direct those gifts to indisputably worthy philanthropic causes that we also currently support if this truly ludicrous plan is passed. My statement should not be construed as a threat, simply a sober decision. We cannot in good conscience add money to one pocket of the university while it takes the equivalent money out of another pocket to prop up yet again an unsustainable business, i.e., football at this level. If WSU’s central administration believes this new annual multi-million dollar diversion to entertainment is truly essential to the university’s mission, let the Central Administration find the money in the salaries and operating budgets of the coaching staffs (all sports) as well as the salaries of the innumerable vice-provosts, assistant vice-provosts, Directors etc. positions whose ranks have risen exponentially in the last 2 decades. Big time football is an unsustainable business model in its current form; so is the proliferation of many mid-level (and some senior level) administrators who are not directly involved in instruction, research, and essential outreach (such as extension). Please reject this proposal.
Dr Kreuger rightly talks about chronic traumatic encephalopathy seen in many football players. Remember, WSU has had it’s own tragic story of an athlete affected by CTE, Tyler Hilinski, who committed suicide. The story can be found in the NY Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/sports/football/ryan-hilinski-tyler-suicide-quarterback.html ). Isn’t this enough to rethink pouring money into a sport that damages our students?
This is an absurd and irresponsible idea. The monies earned via external research dollars swamps the athletics enterprise. Spending research monies, indirect cost returns, and state allocations on athletics is an unethical conflict of interest. Teaching and research need to be maintained as the primary focus of the WSU land grant mission. All general subsidies from WSU’s core mission to athletics need to be cast out, and Athletics needs to run as a sustainable “elective” department mission. Not to further tear down our core mission as a reputable institution of higher education. Drs. Kruger and O’Conner also pointed out the terrible consequences of head injuries in student athletics, which does not just manifest in football but other sports too.
As an example Stanford cut 11 of their 36 varsity athletics programs early this year to foster sustainability as an academic institution. Stanford seems to have their priorities online for a top class institution of higher education, and I bet they aren’t trying to justify their “drive for 25”. Can WSU also be as bold and responsible, to value research and student education as THE top priorities.
Let’s not forget the time that our head coach, Mike Leach, called our student athletes “fat, dumb, happy and entitled” on ESPN; https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/27726924
Can’t we have one week without “stupid” impeding my breathing? “Visibility” doesn’t mean athletics isn’t an irrelevant financial sinkhole, bailed out by English 101 enrollments.
There should be no academic funds supporting athletics at WSU. If the university finds its current athletic commitments are financially unsustainable, then a radical reshaping of athletics expenditures is required. We need to get back to our essential natures here at WSU: conducting research and educating students. Everything else is superfluous.
I graduated in 2004, my oldest daughter in 2014, and my youngest daughter is pursuing her PhD so I have a connection to WSU academics. My youngest tells me of basic issues with infrastructure in her science building: have to go to other building with containers to obtain potable water! Windows that “rain on the inside”! Space heaters and fans because the heat or A/C doesn’t work in some offices! SCIENCE is where the future is, not sports. We want to encourage women to join STEM but then funnel the money to sports, how does that even make sense? Keep the science money in science and fix their buildings, make academics a priority!
kudos to you!!! I applaud and invite more parents to write and give your feedback.
WSU has consistently shown more interest in an unsustainable football program than it has in fulfilling its commitments as a land-grant research institution. I hope this changes, but a proposal like the one above doesn’t give me much confidence.
Athletics has a place in education, but not when it is at the cost of that education, which is what is happening here. The academic units, departments and colleges have been asked to take an 8-10% budget cut, resulting in salary cuts, lost jobs, crowed classrooms, broken equipment, and more. All of which harm our students, staff and faculty, especially the most vulnerable among them. And yet we are proposing to give money to Athletics, which is not a defined part of our mission as an institution of higher education, and to do what? Attract revenue that hasn’t managed to help balance Athletics budget over the past decade? Continue to allow our students’ health to be permanently damaged for our entertainment, while we take no responsibility? The question shouldn’t be whether WSU football is financially viable outside the PAC-12, it should be whether it is financially and morally viable at all.
Athletics should be a top priority for any university. The athletic department should attempt to be revenue neutral to the university, however sometimes that’s not possible. Having a top tier athletics department is an important part of campus life and a huge part of alumni relations. There is nothing better that offers an opportunity to market the university, it’s departments and it’s research than athletics. It is the entree to the college from the outside world.
I’d love to see the statics of the quality of students that apply WSU and number of applications when the football team is performing well vs. not.
Athletics should be for individual health and physical well-being not for further underfunding educational support at CAS for a like amount. Education first athletics – self-funded – second.
I oppose this plan. Robbing Peter to pay Paul has never been a sustainable budget solution, and when instruction and academic areas are cut to support an athletic program that we have heard for many years would be self-supporting “next year for sure,” it’s even less tenable as a strategy. We’re a land grant institution, and our first priority should be to support education and research for our faculty and students. Bailing out athletics for the umpteenth year in a row on the backs of those we should be serving is no way to run a university and is in conflict with its mission.
Please do not bail out athletics at the expense of academics. Our mission is education, and we have already bailed them out once, to the detriment of our students and faculty.
For years now, the university has pushed the concept of making academics more business-like. Yet, when athletics can’t support itself, it gets bailed out? Get rid of college sports or make it self-supporting.
I am an alum, avid fan of our intercollegiate sports, and a current faculty member.
It is appalling that the Board of Regents and our WSU leadership would even consider taking funds from our research, education, and outreach efforts that are dictated in our mission statement, to correct long-term mismanagement in the athletic department. What message does this send to faculty who conduct world-class research in buildings that have been condemned? What is the message to the legislature? Please fund WSU, not so we can educate the young citizens of Washington, but because we need to bail out the athletic program? What about the message to potential students and their parents? You are paying increasingly large amounts of money for tuition, but we need some of your funds to bail out athletics rather than providing an education for your children? Why would potential donors to our academic programs even consider providing money to WSU when we are taking away money meant for education and using it for purposes that are not even part of our mission?
Just to remind everyone, here is the mission of WSU:
To advance knowledge through creative research and scholarship across a wide range of academic disciplines.
To extend knowledge through innovative educational programs in which emerging scholars are mentored to realize their highest potential and assume roles of leadership, responsibility, and service to society.
To apply knowledge through local and global engagement that will improve quality of life and enhance the economy of the state, nation, and world.
The current proposal is in direct conflict with each of these points. Every college and academic unit on campus has taken cuts over the past years and been forced to adapt to reduced budgets. It is time that athletics learn to manage their budgets and do the same.
I have been a professor at WSU for 30 years. The erosion of support for teaching and research in the Humanities over that time has been shocking. As it is, I am among the many faculty members who resents the many hours of clerical work added to our duties because WSU administrators have decided to cut support staff positions. Like many of my colleagues, during the pandemic, I am working a minimum of 70 hours a week just on teaching and service and must try to find time for research in addition to this. Now we face such enormous cuts to the CAS budget that it seems impossible we can continue providing a decent education to our students, let alone pursue research goals. This plan to take money we don’t have and give it to the athletic program really needs to be rethought.
The previous comment that best encapsulates my response is “WOW. Just WOW!” I truly cannot believe this move to fund athletics with academic monies is being seriously considered. There are better ideas. One that comes to mind is paring down the Athletic Department like the University of Minnesota has done. Please put a stop to drain that an unsustainable Athletic Department puts on WSU and come up with plans to save what should be saved of that Department without harming WSU’s commitment to academics.
Please do not bail out the athletics department. I think the saying goes like this, don’t feed a dead horse. The university could use those funds in a much better way, like research, infrastructure, clean water in our buildings, shoveled sidewalks, plowed parking lots, and clean bathrooms, to name a few.
I disagree with the proposal to use academic funds to cover the athletics department debt.
I remember having the opportunity to tour the athletic facility with my son as part of a school outing a few years ago. I was shocked at the opulence. Leather chairs with embroidered logos. A private chef at the ready. A personal gym with seemingly more equipment than players. I remember asking if all of this was actually utilized, especially since the gym was vacant. Our tour guide responded with “you have to have the best to recruit the best.” How many students have we failed to recruit because hallways are darkened and parents don’t feel safe sending their kids here? How many faculty have we failed to recruit because we have to use old equipment and have a skeletal support staff or don’t offer competitive startups?
Our colleges have remarkable staff and faculty, who are dedicated beyond measure to their students. They have heeded the call to adapt to budget cuts, changes in instruction, increases in fees, degrading facilities and equipment and have done it while still providing instructional and emotional support to our students. This request to ask for more budget cuts to further support athletics is too much. I already hear student complaints about how they “had better equipment in high school”, or “is this where my money is going?”. These comments are never a reflection of the instruction, but rather the condition of the resources that we are expected to make work. Please consider other options. Our students deserve better.
Our facilities are woefully outdated in many locations. If you want to invest money toward increasing student recruitment, we need to have the facilities that the majority of the students will spend the majority of their academic career in to be something impressive, rather than something fear inducing.
Athletics impacts a very small portion of our students. Those who derive entertainment through the Athletics program do not derive significantly less entertainment out of the athletics if we move out of the PAC-12. In fact, if our athletics are less competitive, more of our student body may feel capable of participating instead of only watching.
If academic funds are to be diverted in the name of recruitment/retention, it needs to go to facilities, not sports. But the funds absolutely should NOT be diverted from academics at all.
Whether people like it or not, a successful football program increases admission applications. The more attention the school gets the more people looking at WSU. Unfortunately, football and other sports brings the school into mainstream media more than any of its research. Plus, if the football program continues on its path of success and becomes more competitive, the more money it can bring in for the program and the academic side of the school as well.
So far no evidence has been asserted to support the assumption that WSU athletics is beneficial to the university mission. The current administration has adopted the goal of increasing our status as a research university yet athletics has financially drained the academic programs necessary to achieve that goal. Continuing to divert support desperately needed for education to athletics weakens WSU as a whole.
So many excellent comments in opposition to this idea that I’ll just add, “Shame on you, WSU, for even considering this!”
It is with horror but not surprise that I learn of the Regents’ vote to supplemental the athletic budget from academic funds with approximately $2.5 million annually taken from other areas of the budget (namely academics). Given the stated assumptions, which are not at all held in consensus by the university community, I can but assume that, as per usual, the vote with pass without a single naysayer while grad students and many faculty (especially women) suffer sub-standard wages, insufficient equipment budgets, ever-leaner online staff while the highly paid tier of administrators grows constantly. It hardly bears mention that this all occurs while this same board and these same administrators are requiring faculty to do more amid a national pandemic of never-before-seen proportions fueled locally by WSU students whose return the university allowed to play out unsupervised, untested, and with little guidance. If WSU once had a shot at becoming a truly tier one institution, it now seems hell bent on the race to the bottom. Shame on you all.
I understand the reaction of not wanting to support athletics more when each of our colleges are suffering. I do believe we need to listen to the experts in this field, we have a sports management department on this campus (I’m biased, but my husband’s post has good information). From my discussions with others and a bit of my own research, I do not believe that leaving the Pac-12 will be the fix that we are looking for. In fact, I think many of the other alternatives will cost us a bit more.
Essentially all of the comments above reflect what a research university needs to focus on in its mission.
The Board of Regents should meet with the leadership of the Faculty Senate to discuss this “bailout” proposal, and its many ramifications and inconsistencies.
The Faculty Senate might also be in a stronger position to fully convey their concerns, if it received broader input from the entire faculty ranks. The message would though presumably be the same.
I am a faculty member with no axe to grind on the Athletics Department operations per se. However, perhaps they would be better served by looking for financial support and/or in borrowing funds from outside of WSU, and be accountable for same. If they need to live outside their WSU budget, they need to do what other faculty have to do, i.e. bring in additional funds to meet their needs.
This is not a straightforward issue. It is complex and there’s lot that all or the majority are not aware of because faculty are not normally exposed to the relevant data. Personally, i think it would be a travesty to leave the Pac12. The benefits of belonging are many, but not necessarily obvious. For example, it is difficult to put a figure on the positive impact being a Pac 12 member has on Development activities. The same goes for applications from prospective students. For many high school students, televised WSU/Pac 12 sports is an important factor in their first impression with respect to this or other institutions. (As an example, check applications to U Idaho vs those at Boise State over the last decade.) Many people seem to be of the impression that the Athletic Department diverts state funds from educational program support. As far as I know, it doesn’t or, if it does, it is a pittance from the perspective of total annual expenditures. Again, it would help if this data was shared.
Finally, many of us are associated with, or have friends with local businesses in Pullman. Many have suffered mightily this year. Withdrawing from the Pac 12 would not be as bad, but it would still hurt many of them greatly. I appreciate the thought and sincerity that has gone into the comments that have been submitted to this point. However, I cannot agree that it would be to WSU’s long term academic or financial benefit to leave the PAC12.
I left my own comment above. I relay this comment on behalf of one of my CAS constituents:
I object to the subsidy of Athletics when the academic side of the university will be facing budget cuts. And even if we weren’t facing cuts, academics should be prioritized over athletics. There are better uses for these funds.
I expect the bailout to happen, for the simple reason that practically and ideologically, education is held hostage to sports from high school upwards in this country. I see no sign of that changing. However, it would be gratifying for there to be more honesty and clarity on these matters. We are told that leaving the Pac 12 would be disastrous; at the same time, there seems no end to having to fork out money to keep athletics afloat. This is a grave situation for a university to be in. If faculty are not in full possession of the relevant facts that make Pac 12 membership so vital, then give us those facts. Much is being asked of us with little in return.
Many have already voiced the major concerns with this proposal. I want to add a less important one, that the timing of this proposal is intensely problematic. WSU faculty & staff are already dealing with uncertainty and anxiety about what COVID-19 is doing and will do to our departments, jobs, & the overall financial health of the university. If we are eventually asked to furlough, or otherwise tighten belts that are already very tight, while Athletics receives an *annual* subsidy/bailout, how can we believe that we or our students rank high within WSU’s priorities? Why is the proposal for an annual subsidy on the table at a time when the future and COVID’s long-term ramifications cannot be known? Maybe 2-3 million dollars for athletics would save us money in the long term (though I’m extremely doubtful), but this isn’t an appropriate focus for the current time.
Graduate TAs live in poverty. Instructors labor tirelessly for a pittance. Disabled students can’t access our campus with basic human dignity. Students have to choose between buying textbooks and paying rent. Shame on you for proposing that athletics is the most worthy recipient of funds.
This proposal is truly appalling and the fact that no one listens to students, faculty, staff, and other constitutents when these types of decisions are made is even more appalling. All of the people above who oppose this motion and the fact that academic departments have critical needs that are continually ignored is ridiculous. We are a land grant university, not a world class athletics organization. According to WSU’s website, this is our mission:
To advance knowledge through creative research and scholarship across a wide range of academic disciplines.
To extend knowledge through innovative educational programs in which emerging scholars are mentored to realize their highest potential and assume roles of leadership, responsibility, and service to society.
To apply knowledge through local and global engagement that will improve quality of life and enhance the economy of the state, nation, and world.
**I would like an explanation as to how bailing out athletics is in alignment with any component of this mission statement. Further, when is the last time the Regents have even seen some of our buildings? Are buildings that are condemned which are still used as teaching and lab space not important to advancing our mission? Why do our faculty, students, and staff have to continue to suffer when academic funds are misused? As someone said earlier, we are an academic institution, not a sports training facility. I feel bad for all the students and faculty who deserve better, but clearly do not seem to deserve better in the eyes of those who make these decisions. We will likely lose more donor funding since academics does not seem to be our priority.
From a faculty constituent in my College:
“Regarding the proposed $2- 3 million assist from admin to the athletic department based on the assumptions of increased student recruitment etc:
I would like to add my voice to the proposal that the Faculty Senate carry out an independent study into the validly of the assumptions. The very fact that the number 2 million to 3 million (a difference of 1 million) is being discussed indicates that there is a discrepancy in value of money among academics and athletics. Perhaps a mere million is not a lot to athletics but the reverse is true in the world of academics.”
I have been against having intercollegiate sports associated with the university since I was at Virginia Tech and saw how it completely took over the function of the university. It has been better here, but I now see it starting to gain further control over the university and I am totally against it. If I had my way, we would only have intermural sports associated with the university, but that is a pipe dream as well. However, we need to take a stand that the university athletic department MUST be a self-sustaining operation. It is not fair and will be a terrible precedence to set if tuition or state tax dollars are transferred to the athletic department. I believe that if they transfer tax dollars, it would violate state law. If they transfer tuition moneys, I think that it will end up in court from a student or student family through a legal challenge. If they transfer money from the foundation, I believe that it will violate the intent for what that money was designated for by the donors. I hope that the regents have some common sense. The university is not and entertainment center!
I’ve posted my own comment above. I’m posting this one on behalf of one of my constituents in CAS:
“In my view research universities are about academics, not about football. When a football program begins to detract from academic programs, it is time for that program to go. I do not know what our legal situation is but with academic programs, if a program is ended contracts are null and void. I hope this is true of our football program and that ceasing to pay coaches’ huge salaries would help the University to recoup some of its losses on this program. I know that the President considers the football program to be essential to WSU’s brand. It may be that it is time for that brand to change. After some period of time we could reinstitute a football program at a lower level with considerably lower coach salaries––say the salary an average professor makes. I’m sure we could not get high-level coaches for this amount. That is okay with me. Football is an entertainment and the University should assess it and reward it as such.”
The so-called evidence for the importance of college athletics for recruiting and donations amounts to hear-say and frankly, sound incredible. Do you know anyone who sends their kinds to a college because of the football team? Do you know any student (except for the football players) who chose their college because of the football team? The claims about importance of athletics (specifically football) are often repeated, but I have never seen any real evidence. We should not accept such claims only because they are often repeated. That does not make them true. Repetition more often signifies lack of evidence. Those wishing to make the arguments based on such assumptions must prove their assumptions first.
I agree there is some visibility benefit to our athletics program–it is definitely smaller than what the athletics department suggests. I also agree that it improves the student experience. My understanding, however, is that our students choose us because we are a top tier in-state institution. Maybe that is wrong?
Please provide more information to support the assumptions. I think they are likely not true in the case of WSU.
At some point universities are going to have to decide whether our education mission serves the athletic department or the athletic department serves the education mission. In my humble opinion, thus far the educators are serving the athletic department. I want to see better evidence the reverse is true.