Faculty Perceptions of Intercollegiate Athletics Executive Summary
Faculty Perceptions of Intercollegiate Athletics Executive Summary
Link here to download the Executive Summary in PDF.In a national survey of more than 2,000 faculty members at universities with the country’s most visible athletic programs, a striking number of professors say they don’t know about and are disconnected from issues facing college sports. More than a third say they don’t know about many athletics program policies and practices, including the financial underpinnings of their campuses’ athletics programs. Furthermore, more than a third have no opinion about concerns raised by national faculty athletics reform groups. The largest portion of faculty (41 percent) believe faculty governance roles on campus associated with the oversight of intercollegiate athletics are ill defined, and most believe those roles are not particularly meaningful. On other issues, faculty are often equally divided between those who are satisfied with the conduct of their institution’s intercollegiate athletics programs and those who are not. Faculty members do tend to agree on several key points:
- Athletics decisions on campus are being driven by the demands of the entertainment industry.
- Faculty members are dissatisfied with their roles in athletics governance on campus, although more of them are satisfied with presidential oversight of athletics on their own campuses.
- Salaries paid to head football and basketball coaches are excessive, and the financial needs of athletics get higher priority than academic needs. Still, half of the respondents also think athletics success results in financial gains to campus initiatives unrelated to sports.
- Professors have similar levels of satisfaction with the academic performance of students in general and athletes in sports other than football and basketball. However, they are significantly less satisfied with the academic performance of football and basketball players. They believe athletes are more burdened than other students by demands on their out-of-class time.
- Faculty members are satisfied with the practice of awarding scholarships based on athletics ability, and believe that scholarships for basketball and football athletes may not compensate them fairly for their services.
