When the sports television network ESPN launched allegations last week that Duke lets its athletes slide through school with easy classes and majors, the administration ardently defended the University's academic standards. The reaction from Duke's faculty has been less heated.
There has been no organized response from professors, either through ad hoc groups or the established councils that have traditionally served as the faculty voice. Nevertheless, individual faculty members who have been involved in issues of athletics and academics address ESPN's charges with a variety of opinions, ranging from mild concern to defense of current practices.
"I find that extraordinarily inappropriate if it's intended as a reproach and somehow a sign of academic weakness," said political science professor Thomas Spragens of the network's two shows, which cited certain majors, classes and registration practices some said favor athletes. Spragens is a former chair of the Athletic Council, a group of professors, administrators, students and others who help provide oversight for the Department of Athletics.
"It is legitimate to say we're not perfect," Spragens said, "and it is legitimate to say we don't field our teams based solely on their academics, but it seems to me that's unavoidable and not scandalous as long as you're admitting students... you think can do the work and graduate."
Other members of the Athletic Council agreed, including Calvin Howell, professor of physics, and Martha Putallaz, professor of Psychology: Social and Health Sciences. They said standards have not been lowered for athletes, even high profile athletes, and they defended practices like allowing athletes to attend summer school or register at the head of their respective classes.
The Athletic Council also serves as a safeguard, they said, against the faculty losing control over varsity sports. They said council members regularly discuss admissions practices with the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and examine the academic performance and tutoring of varsity athletes on an individual basis.
"I take everything on a one-by-one case, because we're not talking about a lot of students here," Howell said. "In my experience, anything we can do to meet their needs is helpful to their education, not detrimental."
The faculty as a whole is less involved in athletes' concerns, said Ronald Witt, chair of the Arts and Sciences Council and professor of history. He said the council, the senate for Arts and Sciences professors, has not discussed athletes' academic performance in some time.
"Unless someone brought forward to us specific charges, you wouldn't know what's going on because no one's ever raised it as an issue at Duke," Witt said.
Peter Burian, professor of classical studies, chairs the Academic Council, the University-wide faculty senate. He said the council has not broached the interaction of athletics and academics for some time, but that its executive committee has discussed the issue.
Several other schools' faculty senates, including that of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have passed resolutions asking for the implementation of some suggestions made by the Knight Foundation's Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. Burian said the Academic Council may also want to consider the report, which criticized college sports as un-academic and too commercial. "We ought to at least consider some of the suggestions in the Knight report, in part to keep the practice time by athletes limited," Burian said. "Duke could be part of a larger effort among American colleges and universities to ensure that those athletes that want to pursue studies can do that."
For some, any larger effort must begin with a study of Duke athletes' academic performance. Faculty need specific, comprehensive data, said Prasad Kasibhatla, a member of the Academic Council's executive committee. "I think it will behoove us to look at that, but it won't really help us to just pass resolutions in a blanket way," Kasibhatla said. "It depends on what the data shows."
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