Last December we published an essay by our Director of Inquiries, Charles F. Blaich, responding to conclusions that have come out of Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-sponsored studies on deleterious effects of Division III athletics on the health of education in small colleges. We received a spirited response from two members of the staff at Mellon, Eugene M. Tobin and Martin A. Kurzweil. In this omnibus issue we are glad to offer that response and two further reflections on the interrelationship between athletic competition and collegiate learning.
What about the claims that Tobin and Kurzweil make? We appreciate their interest in continuing the discussion. We also value all of the attention that the books from the Mellon Foundation have brought to this important issue. At the same time, we stand by the claims in Blaich's essay and the larger Center of Inquiry report that informed it. Our suggestion is that readers have another look for themselves at our study http://liberalarts.wabash.edu/cila/liberalartsonline and make up their own minds about the merits of Tobin's and Kurzeil's response.
And what is it that connects this debate about athletics to liberal arts education? We are committed to the idea, until strong evidence or compelling arguments dissuade us, that a liberal arts education is truly about the development of the whole person, not just the intellect. There is more to college than just the academic side of it - a series of courses, a collection of disciplines. Many factors make an education that liberates persons. In the American tradition, those factors have long included activities such as athletics. If the proper balance has been lost between athletics and education, then all of us should seek responsible ways to recover it. In distinctive and different ways, each of the essays in this issue takes on that matter of balance. - Frederik Ohles, Editor
Contents:
"What Kind of Game Are We Playing? -- A Response" by Eugene M. Tobin and Martin A. Kurzweil
"Disengaged Jocks: Myth or Reality?" by Paul Umbach and George Kuh
"To Miss the Joy" by John G. Ramsay
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"What Kind of Game Are We Playing? -- A Response"
by Eugene M. Tobin Senior Advisor
and Martin A. Kurzweil Researcher
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New York, NY.
"What Kind of Game Are We Playing," by Charles F. Blaich, and the related report on the Wabash College Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts research underlying it, raise important questions regarding the role and place of intercollegiate athletics, the latter's relationship to liberal arts colleges' educational mission, and the importance of evaluating athletes' overall educational experience and contributions on our campuses. Such questions require transparent, nuanced and comparative analyses that move beyond narrow stereotypes, intellectual baggage, and misleading conclusions. While we support the Wabash researchers' attempt at conducting such analyses, we encourage them to consider a few of the lessons learned from earlier studies and to correct what we believe are some inaccurate
statements.
The research report and article refer to the path-breaking work of William G. Bowen's and James L. Shulman's *The Game of Life* (2001) and to Bowen's and Sarah A. Levin's *Reclaiming the Game* (2003). In targeting the earlier work, however, the researchers ignore the methodological innovation that distinguishes *Reclaiming the Game* from its predecessor, and from their own research. That innovation--differentiating recruited athletes (defined as those students who are included on a "coach's list" sent to admissions offices) from non-athletes and athletes who are not recruited
("walk-ons")--allows Bowen and Levin to understand admission preference in a new way and to provide much more rigorous and telling estimates of the extent of academic underperformance. [See Endnote 1.]
A second important methodological consideration that distinguishes *The Game of Life* and *Reclaiming the Game* from the Wabash study is the former's use of percentile rank in class, rather than grade point average (GPA), as a measure of academic performance. This is a crucial and differentiating factor because GPAs are not directly comparable across institutions. Additionally, as every college professor and administrator knows, grade inflation and compression mean that there is not much space between the GPAs
of any students. Distributions of class ranks are also more likely to reveal
to what extent recruited athletes are "representative" of all students,
which should, after all, be the goal and cornerstone of a truly integrated
athletic and educational program. [See Endnote 2.]
In his article, Blaich suggests that the findings in *The Game of Life* and
*Reclaiming the Game* are limited in utility because their universe
encompasses a small, elite group of "all-stars" whose "problems" bear little
resemblance to institutions educating first-generation college students.
"Rationing access to highly prized educational opportunities," Blaich
implies, is not a luxury most colleges and universities in Division III can
afford to consider, and he cautions institutions to resist making the highly
selective colleges' problems their own. Fair enough; unfortunately, many of
the problems associated with intensified athletic programs cut across
admission selectivity, endowment size, and national reputation. An
underlying theme in both books--which the Wabash researchers correctly
identify--has to do with the total educational experience of athletes on our
campuses.
There may be less of a statistical (academic) divide between the recruited
athletes and other students from the ten colleges and universities in the
Wabash study than between those from the institutions examined in the *The
Game of Life* and *Reclaiming the Game* [See Endnote 3.]--(we won't know
until comparable statistical analyses are done separating recruited athletes
from walk-ons and non-athletes)--but there is an equally troublesome divide
that clearly exists across the board. This divide reflects the changes in
athletics that have occurred across our colleges and universities--the
extraordinary intensification and professionalization of athletics, the
number of hours committed to practice, in- and out-of-season conditioning,
numbers of coaches hired, the residential clustering and curricular grouping
of athletes, and the athletic subculture that tragically isolates these
students from the campus culture. [See Endnote 4.] Moreover, whatever the
putative differences in admissions between highly selective and less
selective institutions, the fact remains that athletes are recruited at
almost all institutions, that these recruits are generally admitted at a
higher rate, and that, once matriculated, their overall college experience
is shaped and narrowed to an exceptional degree by their athletic
associations.
Athletes, of course, are not the only students who may be performing below
predicted levels, but few institutions, as Derek Bok recently observed,
"have made . . . a serious effort to discover whether their undergraduates
are performing up to their capabilities." The most successful programs, as
Bok notes, share one common characteristic--they establish high academic
expectations for all students. [See Endnote 5.]
There is no real difference, Blaich suggests, between the chemistry major
who spends all her time in the laboratory and the football player who
devotes countless hours to training, breaking down film, and practicing. In
both instances, he contends, their lives are unbalanced and they're missing
out on many other enriching aspects of campus life. But there is an
important difference--chemistry is a part of the core educational
curriculum, football is not.
Blaich and his fellow researchers are absolutely correct in calling upon all
who care about liberal arts education and athletics to focus on mission and
values. When we do, we'll find that we share much more in common--the
problems and their solutions.
Acknowledgement
The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Michael S. McPherson,
president of the Spencer Foundation.
Endnotes
1. Readers of *The Game of Life* and *Reclaiming the Game* will recall that
one of their most troubling findings is the degree to which recruited
athletes underperform in the classroom-that they do less well than they
would be expected to do based on their academic credentials and demographic
traits. By contrast, the researchers at Wabash College's Center of Inquiry
in the Liberal Arts find limited evidence of underperformance among athletes
at the institutions in their study, but they do not report the methodology
used to calculate their findings. In order to validate these potentially
significant results, future analyses will need to provide more transparent
methodological information. Similarly, it does not appear that the Wabash
researchers include control variables for race. We know from Bowen's and
Derek Bok's *The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering
Race in College and University Admissions* (1998) that underrepresented
minority students tend to underperform. The failure to control for race
likely confounds the estimates of underperformance associated with being an
athlete, and also makes the current Wabash results incomparable with those
of *Reclaiming the Game*, which does control for race.
2. Another methodological problem in the research supporting "What Kind of
Game Are We Playing" has to do with the presentation of evidence. For
example, in attempting to show that using rank in class overstates
differences in academic performance, the researchers write on page 9 of the
report that the difference between a 3.06 and a 3.07 grade point average is
equivalent to a difference of 8 percentile rank points (40th versus 48th
percentile). However, the table to which they refer (Table 4) shows the
average GPA of athletes and non-athletes along with the percentage of
athletes and non-athletes in the bottom third of their class--it does not
show the percentile rank in class associated with particular GPAs. The
8-percentile-rank-point difference is a figment derived from a misreporting
of the researchers' own data.
3. While *Reclaiming the Game*'s database is drawn from some of the
nation's most selective colleges and universities, it's helpful to keep in
mind that two of its schools (Denison University and Kenyon College) are
among the ten liberal arts institutions included in the Wabash study.
4. "What Kind of Game Are We Playing" argues that Bowen and Levin care more
about students "who are turned away" than they do with the intellectual
growth of the athletes who attend these institutions; this is inaccurate.
Although they do discuss the "opportunity cost" of athletic admissions
advantages in detail, the majority of Bowen and Levin's analysis focuses on
the academic-athletic divide on-campus--the cultural isolation of recruited
athletes described in the text above and their worrisome academic
underperformance. What the authors of *Reclaiming the Game* lament is the
extent to which a student does not live up to his or her academic potential.
The problem is not the "B" student who challenges herself and explores a
diverse array of subjects and activities; it is the "B" student who follows
the academic path of least resistance despite her potential to be an "A"
student. In sum, it is the failure of many recruited athletes to realize
their full academic potential that makes the opportunity cost of athletic
preferences in admission so high.
5. Derek Bok, "Closing the Nagging Gap in Minority Achievement," *Chronicle
of Higher Education* 50:9 (October 24, 2003), B20.
Direct personal responses to Eugene M. Tobin at EMT@Mellon.org.
--------------------------------------
"Disengaged Jocks: Myth or Reality?"
by Paul Umbach
Research Analyst
and George Kuh
Chancellor's Professor of Higher Education and Director
Center for Postsecondary Research
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN.
For such a popular and complex topic as the nature of the experiences of
intercollegiate athletes, it is surprising that there is so little evidence
about what student-athletes do during college and how their behavior
compares to other students. Until recently we knew almost nothing about how
athletes spend their time when not on the playing fields and courts.
At the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research we are looking
closely now at this issue. We have done preliminary comparisons of
student-athletes and other students in terms of their involvement in
educationally purposeful activities. These are behaviors that prior research
studies have tied to desired outcomes of college.
Three questions are guiding our present work. First, how do the educational
experiences of student-athletes compare with those of non-athletes? Second,
does the level of competition, whether by National Collegiate Athletic
Association (NCAA) division or National Association of Intercollegiate
Athletics (NAIA) membership, affect students' satisfaction, their
involvement in good practices in undergraduate education, and their
perceptions of the campus environment? Finally, do student-athletes differ
in important ways in their college experiences depending upon their
backgrounds (whether they are transfers, women, or students of color)?
Our data come from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). NSSE
assesses the extent to which students engage in empirically-derived good
educational practices and what they gain from their college experience (Kuh,
2001, 2003). Although NSSE does not assess student learning outcomes
directly, the main content of the survey represents student behaviors that
correlate highly with desirable outcomes of college. The sample for this
study was 113,553 undergraduate students who completed NSSE in the spring of
2003. Almost 10% of them, 12,559, were student-athletes. Of the 395
four-year colleges and universities represented, 107 are members of NCAA
Division I, 93 of NCAA Division II, 145 of NCAA Division III, and 50 are
NAIA schools.
We conducted a series of analyses to explore the relationships between
participating in intercollegiate athletics and student engagement,
self-reported gains, perceptions of the campus environment, and satisfaction
with college. In the first set of analyses we looked at whether
student-athletes differed from their non- athlete peers on key measures of
effective educational practices. The analytical model takes into account
age, race, gender, transfer status, grades, fraternity or sorority
membership, major, full-time enrollment, and parents' education as well as
institutional type, athletic division, and admissions selectivity. The
second set of analyses tested for differences among the student-athletes. We
used the same student characteristic variables in this model, but only
included athletic division and selectivity as institutional characteristics.
In general, student-athletes appear to be slightly more engaged than their
peers. For example, both first-year and senior student-athletes are more
likely to take part in active and collaborative activities. First-year
student-athletes reported greater levels of academic challenge in areas such
as the amount of reading and writing they do and the time they spend
studying. They also interacted more frequently with faculty (discussing
grades or assignments, talking about career plans, and working on activities
other than coursework) than first-year non-athletes did. Student-athletes
also were more likely to report greater gains from college than non-athletes
in personal and social competencies and in general education. Further,
first-year student-athletes were more likely than non-athletes to report
greater gains in practical competencies.
The second set of analyses revealed that female student-athletes were more
likely than their male counterparts to perceive the campus environment as
supportive of their academic and social needs. They reported greater levels
of academic challenge and participation in enriching experiences, such as
interacting with diverse peers, performing community service, and
participating in a practicum or internship. It was no surprise that Division
III student-athletes reported the highest levels of academic challenge and
interaction with faculty and the greatest gains in general education.
Division III student-athletes and those at NAIA-member schools also viewed
their campus environments as more supportive than their peers at other types
of institutions.
What then of the recent suggestions that the college experience of
student-athletes is qualitatively inferior to that of their non-athlete
peers (Bowen & Levin, 2003)? Given the great variation in most aspects of
student life, it is almost certain that some student-athletes on any given
campus are short changed in non-trivial ways in terms of what they put into
and get out of college. It is more likely to be the case for men and student
athletes at larger institutions where arguably athletics requires a greater
commitment of time, both in and out of season. Unfortunately, our data at
this point do not identify the primary or secondary sports of the
student-athletes. Perhaps in subsequent years, with that identification, we
will find systematic differences between student-athletes in high and low
profile areas, such as football and fencing. Nonetheless, our findings
indicate that student-athletes are at least as engaged overall, and in some
areas and at some types of institutions they are more engaged than their
non-athlete peers in effective educational practices. In addition,
student-athletes perceive they receive support from their campus
communities.
As with students in general, the experiences of student-athletes vary
between institutions and within them. For that reason, it is incumbent on
colleges and universities to learn more about the experiences of their
student-athletes, to determine whether they take part in educationally sound
activities, and to be confident that they benefit from college at levels
commensurate with their non-athlete peers. After all, we know a good deal
about how student-athletes perform on the playing field and court. We should
be keeping score on the quality of their educational activities everywhere
else on campus too.
References
Kuh, G.D. (2001). "Assessing what really matters to student learning: Inside
the National Survey of Student Engagement." *Change* 33(3), 10-17, 66.
Kuh, G.D. (2003). "What we're learning about student engagement from NSSE."
*Change* 35(2), 24-32.
Pascarella, E.T., & Terenzini, P.T. (1991). *How college affects students*
San Francisc Jossey-Bass.
Direct personal responses to Paul Umbach at pumbach@indiana.edu.
--------------------------------------
by John G. Ramsay
Hollis L. Caswell Professor of Educational Studies
Carleton College
Northfield, MN.
also American Council on Education Fellow
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN.
Graffiti forecasting the collision between academics and Division III
athletics appeared on the campus quadrangle when I entered Bucknell
University in 1969. Painted on the sidewalk was a two-word question: "Why
play?" As a recruited, non-scholarship athlete, I took notice and I asked
questions. I learned that the authors of the question were disgruntled
baseball players, not whimsical existentialists. The translation of their
concise protest turned out to be: "Why bother? Why compete? Why win?"
The prior spring the university's administration had soured the regular
season good mood of the team by barring their advance to a post-season
tournament. The rationale for that decision was academic and irreversible:
Students are not excused from campus for athletic events during final
examinations. End of story.
But for me it did not end there. That story has always remained a symbolic
benchmark in the ensuing national debate about college education and
intercollegiate athletics, brought to a fine fever now by the Mellon
Foundation's clarifying and provocative book, *Reclaiming the Game: College
Sports and Educational Values* (2003).
The "Why play?" story captures how much has changed in thirty-five years of
competition between athletics and academics. It is now impossible to imagine
any administrators with the authority, let alone the audacity, to rule
against post-season competition. In Division III of the National Collegiate
Athletic Association (NCAA), national championships seem an irremovable part
of the landscape.
There has been a steady gathering of athletic momentum during the past
decades. Admission advantages and scholarship monies flow to athletes. Media
attention to Division III sports dynasties heightens the Sears Cup
competition. Tensions over athletics are not simply local feuds between
unyielding deans and disaffected jocks. Athletics has moved from the
sideline of liberal arts college campuses to the midfield of student life,
and in some cases collegiate life.
Those of us who have long loved both liberal arts education and athletics
are being forced to confront what William Bowen and Sarah Levin aptly call
the "creeping intensification of college sports and the academic-athletic
divide." Much to their credit, Bowen and Levin understand that in our
ongoing confusion about the place of athletics within a liberal arts
education there remains no wiser voice than that of the late A. Bartlett
(Bart) Giamatti, scholar and sports fan, university president and baseball
commissioner.
Bowen and Levin quote Bart Giamatti approvingly and at length in order to
remind us of his key principles for harmonizing studies and sports. For
Giamatti, both studies and sports are a process of "exploration and
fulfillment," and neither studies nor sports is a "process of pursuing a
professional career." Studies are the first priority--the senior, not the
silent partner. Athletics "contributes to the point, but is not the point
itself." Locally, athletics must be construed broadly to include not just
varsity teams, but club sports and intramurals. Coaches are primarily
teachers of enrolled student athletes, not recruiters who spend countless
hours "wooing off-campus." And finally, colleges and universities that prize
liberal arts education must speak and act "as a Group"--as conferences--to
limit the expenditure of "disproportionate amounts of time on athletics."
Articulated in a series of speeches and essays he wrote as president of Yale
University in the 1980s, Giamatti's rules still ring true for several
reasons. In the face of a growing divide, he argued for a valued role for
sports within a liberal learning experience. At a time of escalating
athletic competitiveness, he preached restraint and a sense of proportion.
When considering the unique demands on the coaching profession, he insisted
on the common bond of instructional duty. Giamatti expressed eloquently what
many of us have felt dimly: To reclaim the game, we must have deep, clear,
and persuasive convictions about our educational values.
When I applied to college a generation ago, "jock school" was a term of
derision, unfairly reserved for local state colleges that prided themselves
on their championship banners and their friendly admissions procedures for
high school athletic heroes. Now the data presented about even the most
selective schools in *Reclaiming the Game* suggest that the appropriate
question is: "Which Division III liberal arts college is NOT a jock school?"
Bowen and Levin quote a New England Small College Athletic Association
president who says, "The picture is very clear. There are not outliers--only
liars." Their most striking and sobering finding is about the growing number
of recruited athletes on liberal arts campuses: about 25% of all male and
15% of all female students.
As of the January 12, 2004, Division III membership vote, a worst case
collision of schools with widely varying assumptions, values, and practices
has been avoided. The NCAA membership adopted the most important provisions
of the "reform agenda" proposed by the President's Council, led by
Middlebury College's John McCardell. Among the provisions of the reform are
an end to "red-shirting," a shortening of competitive seasons, reduction of
practice times, and new reporting requirements on financial aid packaging
for student athletes and all other students.
These reforms are real, substantive changes that will serve to slow the kind
of intensification that drives athletes from the academic mainstream of
campus life. They will target differential financial packaging schemes for
athletes, thereby bringing the practice of "presidential scholarships" for
athletes under greater scrutiny. Just as importantly, they symbolize the
achievement of presidential control and they show an effective process of
shared learning about how to negotiate this delicate set of issues. Speaking
recently at the annual meeting of the American Council on Education, NCAA
President Myles Brand called the substance and symbol "the most dramatic
changes" because the Division III membership "voted to reaffirm the academic
missions of their institutions."
For the time being, Division III remains Division III, the NCAA's repository
of an amateur ideal emphasizing scholar over athlete, well-roundedness over
specialization, and the joy of competition over the thrill of victory. The
drift toward behaviors more characteristic of Division I has been
questioned, critiqued, and officially rejected. Bringing this phase of the
reform process to closure is a significant step, since Division I has often
failed to move beyond the rhetoric of reform. In the words of Ewald Nyquist:
"The rhetoric of reform [in 'big-power athletics'] in the past reminds one
of the warrior monuments in Washington, DC parks: The posture is heroic, the
sword is held high, but the movement is nil."
While the movement in Division III is impressive, divisive issues remain,
and they threaten its future. Questions about the character of football
threaten traditional rivalries and conferences. "Big squad" schools that
need males to fill classes and "small squad" schools that are trying to
shrink the number of "slotted" athletes they admit have different
institutional interests. Whether the intensity of these differences can be
softened through intra-league negotiations is not clear. Perhaps the
Swarthmore College decision to eliminate football and the Macalester College
tack of moving to a non-conference schedule will become models for others.
"Football-only" conferences will surely be debated and tried.
Concerns about the sizes of squads and admissions issues are not restricted
to football. Division III schools differ significantly in their assumptions
about how much "team depth" they need to stay competitive. How schools view
the place of athletic competitiveness within their institutional identities
is the key dividing line. For some schools high-profile competitiveness is
central, a historic source of pride, a form of social capital, and their
primary recruiting tool. For others, athletic competitiveness is a piece of
an ethos, not a value to pursue at too dear a price. These institutional
differences are serious obstacles to the NCAA's ability to keep these
schools contentedly playing on the same fields and courts.
Without oversimplifying too much, the problem can be stated this way: Can
schools for whom it is very important to win conference and national
championships continue to co-exist with those for whom a respectable .500
season is the expectation and the norm? Can both types of schools continue
to agree on the rules of the game? Or does it make more sense for one group
to break off and form a Division IV?
President Giamatti campaigned for an ethics of clarity. "It is our
students," he wrote, "in whom the spirit of Yale will live, and it is they
who deserve to know upon what ground of belief we stand, and why we have
chosen to stand there." In the near future, Division III schools may have to
take up this challenge and explain their fundamental assumptions about the
place of competitive sports within an undergraduate education. We may have
to understand the disgruntled baseball players who asked, "Why play?" and
have a coherent answer for them.
The answer we know by heart is that we play to win, that winning is
important. We play to test individual strengths within the camaraderie of
team and in the context of stiff competition. We play to prove ourselves the
best today, in this season, during this era. Unfortunately, this logic of
"taking it to the next level"--however familiar and appealing--turns play
into pressurized work for students and their coaches. It is a logic that
escalates commitment and compromises educational quality. It is a logic that
sets sports apart from the reason we exist. Inquiries about what it means to
be human are not about winning or losing.
The contours of a persuasive alternative answer are difficult to discern.
Recasting the question means asking, What is the place of play within a
liberal arts education? It seems an odd question. The place of play? Play is
so intrinsically enjoyable that it is difficult to explain or even to
describe. One of its distinguishing joys is the lack of self-consciousness
that goes with it. Like trying to say why a joke is funny, any attempt to
justify play seems to violate its very nature.
But Giamatti would argue, I believe, that play is intrinsic to liberal
learning. Playfulness is the imagination's compass for finding paths out of
ourselves, out of our instilled beliefs, and out of our received values.
Imaginative play is the kind of thinking that provides an escape route from
being stuck, especially stuck in the here and now. It is that combination of
cognitive skill and dispositional courage that allows us to reconsider what
it means to be human, and to reassess what we call the human condition.
Giamatti called the arts and sciences "the disciplines for knowledge that
teac