Ranting for academics
posted 1-10-2009 - 2:56 am

 
I have friends whose kids are visiting high schools and colleges now, in anticipation of attending those same come autumn, and I've noticed something: they're increasingly feeling a very specific kind of rage, one fed by the harsh realities of ever higher tuition rates and a snotty streak of anti-intellectualism in this country that glorifies sport at the expense of academics.

It is a very normal and rational reaction to an absurd status quo, one that has to change, though you know the sports fans will go down fighting. Well, on second thought, perhaps that gets more complicated if the sports fans in question are also parents whose happily geeky kids turn out to be more interested in field theory than field goals. I hope so.

The backdrop for this, of course, is the worst economic recession since the Great Depression and the worst unemployment statistics in the last 16 years, courtesy of the December 2008 numbers released earlier today. These campus-visiting parents are bloody well pissed off, and justifiably so: not just about tuition costs in this economy, but about the indefensible favoritism shown to boys' athletic programs while math, science and engineering students (not to mention girls' athletics) go begging for scholarships and loans. Just who do the sports nuts think is going to pull us out of this economic disaster — football players?? Of course not!

I really feel sorry for these parents. Not only do they have to cope with keeping their families intact while being hard pressed from all sides, they're being asked to hand over their life savings in tuition to schools that seem to care more about their NCAA standings than about how many students they'll graduate who will be able to get good jobs and be useful in advancing society to a better future. For which sports stars will be completely useless. Of course.

Considering that colleges' and universities' own endowment funds have suffered lately just as other investments have and academic institutions need all the paying students they can get, you'd think college administrations would have more leverage (and courage) to tell the sports-crazy alumni and team boosters to either shut up and start supporting the school as a whole, or else go stick a pigskin where the sun doesn't shine. But no: somehow, too many academic institutions seem oddly peopled by clueless, gutless wonders who make even Lawrence Summers look good. How did that happen?

Here's part of a note that one such friend sent me yesterday:

... Education in America is always downplayed and sports glorified. Even last night at a high school orientation for Tim, it was mentioned that "we would try to get out early so that everyone could watch the Oklahoma-Florida game. Hell, I couldn't care less when my child's education is at stake! In the long run, that outcome really is very insignificant. And that also brings up the question of scholarships. Monies have always been available in our local school district for sports - but for academics, they are few and far between. Even at [the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign], it was mentioned to us that the football players have a brand new lounge with a huge flat-panel television. The rest of the students just [barely] get along ...

And this is an excerpt from my reaction:

... You're right about scholarships; don't get me started. Part of my views about getting national health insurance (and getting enough practitioners so that there aren't any long waits for care) involve massive government forgiveness of med school and nursing school loans, provided that the students in question permanently go into primary care, pediatrics, ob/gyn, infectious disease, gerontology, or rheumatology; all other specialties can damned well fend for themselves ... We should also have massive loan forgiveness and scholarships for science, tech, math and engineering, and for IT that is not related to entertainment (nope, sorry: nothing for the CGI/fx or videogame crowd — they can damned well survive on their own, too). Our economic infrastructure requires more of those professions, and the market won't provide them on its own: the market never has done that in a timely fashion or in sufficient quantities, and it stupidly punishes investment in R&D.

Which reminds me (how to put this gently without losing the impact?) ... When that tour guide at [U of I in Urbana] bragged about the new flat screen in the athletes' lounge, did you eat him alive in front of all those people for such misplaced priorities and egregious excess?? Did you rip him to shreds over the fact that sports make NO contribution to our economic security or national security, whereas the sciences, math and engineering DO, and here we are in the worst economic slump since the Great Depression — yet they do nothing for the academic students? Did you tear into him and make him explain this bit of stupidity in front of the other parents??? Because I would have, to make the point! Bloody hell YES: I'd have chewed him up and spit him across the quad like an olive pit.

(No, the tour guide isn't responsible for stupid school policies, but he is responsible for promoting that idiot mindset, and the other parents there would've gotten the message, too — and you can bet the administration would have heard about your outburst as well and worried that it might be contagious, especially if the other parents took up your point and cornered him — which might give the school a few minutes' pause before glorifying their athletes again. That might be enough to nudge priorities, too, if enough parents reacted that way.)

Now, before you decide I'm jumping on you unnecessarily, please understand: all I'm saying is that you have an opportunity to let college administrations know your unhappiness with this situation for academic students — and the way to do it is to complain loudly in front of other parents when you see this kind of useless favoritism for boys' athletics (I'm guessing that there IS no plasma screen in the girl athletes' lounge, or that the gals even have a lounge — I'm thinking they get stiffed like all the rest).

Nor should you buy the specious argument that male athletic programs bring money into the school, AND YOU SHOULD SAY SO, because none of that money ever leaves the athletic department; if the cash really did go to benefit the rest of the school, the men's athletic department would get nothing that the other departments don't get, and that would be absolutely fair. When money from football and generous alumni donors who support male collegiate athletics ends up funding a new science lab, or engineering and IT scholarships for girls, or stipends for kids going into research sciences, THEN and only then will I buy those ridiculous arguments. And meanwhile, the rich alumni can go fuck themselves. What happened to the duty of an academic institution to educate its donors about what kind of graduates the nation actually needs??

Nothing will ever change if you don't question it out loud, especially in front of other potential allies — like the parents of other academically inclined kids who are on the same orientation tour. Those brain-damaged tour guides need to hear YOU yelling at them that you're not going to pay the school your hard-earned money for an absurdly high tuition just so they can throw money at idiot athletes, at the expense of your kids. You need the other parents behind you, saying "Right!" out loud and demanding explanations. And that plasma TV in the lounge should be sold and the proceeds donated to the general scholarship fund for ALL students, not earmarked for athletics. You can suggest that out loud next time.

But you get my point: make your unhappiness about this situation their unhappiness at every opportunity, once they're dumb enough to give you an opening. Venting in the right situation will make you feel SO much better and may actually send a useful message. Much better than staying silent and grinding your teeth. ...


I haven't heard back from my friend yet, but I think he and his kid still have a few campus visits to go yet. And I hope he finds his rage and vents it effectively. Thing is, it's very tempting for a parent at that kind of moment to just stew silently and glower at the tour guide instead of speaking up; I can sympathize with a natural tendency to avoid causing grief for anyone who might keep your kid from getting accepted at the school of his or her choice. The problem, however, is that the only time parents have any influence whatsoever on college administrations is before their kids are accepted and enrolled, and that's when you have to make noise and get all the concessions you can. Once your child is in, you're stuck with whatever conditions the school wants to impose and whatever decisions it makes on scholarships and loans. You have to get what concessions you want up front and send the message you want to send in advance, or you won't be heard at all: once they've got you, they can safely ignore you.

So I wonder: now that parents have so little to lose in this economic environment, will they find their healthy rage and finally let college administrations have it, or will they fall back on old fears and cowed deference, stay silent, and miss a singular opportunity to be heard?

If I had kids, I know which option I'd choose — but then, I've always been a smart, mouthy dame. Good thing it comes in handy.