See Vanderbilt, Tulane, and Sewanee.
So, because Vandy, Tulane, and Sewanee are not competitive, no program with rigorous academic standards can compete? Well, that's absolutely fallacious.
If this is where you wish Tennessee to go merely for the sake of a perceived (and false) national academic ranking, then you have every right to work for the change.
I would like Tennessee to be a more academically rigorous institution. The reputation may or may not follow, but I think that it is reasonable to suggest that the reputation will be a reflection of the results. If the reputation is empty, then I would say that it is a problem; and, then, UT needs to work to actually make itself stack up to said reputation.
Just don't be surprised when your athletic programs get rolled. This isn't the PAC 12. We can't set Stanford-level standards for student-athletes and get the results Stanford has been able to achieve in the weaker conference.
Right. Stanford and ND would not be able to compete in the SEC. Sure.
You realize there is a difference between an academic scholarship and an athletic scholarship? The athletic scholarship is funded privately through donations. Not one dime comes from public funding resources.
False. The UTAD is subsidized with public funds to the tune of $12.5M, $11.6M, $12.3M, $6M, and $5M over each of the last five years, respectively. You might rightly claim that the money for the scholarships is coming, strictly, from a separate pot; however, the subsidies allow the UTAD to spend money elsewhere, that they would have previously had to either spend on things like scholarships or choose not to spend (because they would not have the funds).
No one at Tennessee with strong qualifying scores is being denied admission because a student with the same or lower qualifying scores is being offered an athletic grant-in-aid.
False. The resources at UT can only support a certain number of students. Whether the tuition for an athlete comes from private donations or public funds, the athlete still takes up a seat in a classroom. Thus, the available slots for other applicants is further limited by athletes. So, someone who would have been admitted to UT were there no athletes being admitted with sub-par academic merits is denied. That is categorically true.
The student-athlete meets the requirements set by Tennessee, the NCAA, and the SEC and has something to offer as a prospective player at the school. His scholarship is tied to his ability as a player and as such his admission does not take detract from the potential admission of other students who are not so gifted athletically.
As shown above, your last proposition is false. Great, the athlete has athletic ability to offer to an academic institution.
You can have a great academic program and a great athletics program. You are right.
But you cannot set unrealistic standards for your athletics program when others in your conference are not following suit. Such standards limit the pool of athletes you can attract to your program, discourage the recruitment of quality coaches to your program, and detract from the ability of your sports to compete.
They might detract from the ability to compete. If they do, so be it. Other programs have made it work, though. So, the conclusion that a program cannot compete with high academic standards does not necessarily follow.
If you seek Stanford-level admissions requirements, then we need to be in a conference with others who either share or approach those admissions levels for student-athletes. The SEC is not the PAC-12 or the Big 10 in this regard and we should not pretend that our course of action will be readily followed by the rest.
Again, Stanford and ND could compete in the SEC in football. Duke could compete in basketball. Pepperdine, for most of its history, could compete in baseball.
Drake Group thinking on full display. Who needs athletics? Who needs football? Let's rid ourselves of these pesky athletics and pretend we are Oxford on the Tennessee. That will surely enhance our academic reputation!
Getting rid of athletics will not do anything to enhance the academics at UT. Enhancing the reputation through means that do not actually focus on enhancing the academics at UT will not do anything to enhance the academics at UT. Admitting more academically qualified applicants, applicants that actually show promise and potential for academic success, will not necessarily enhance academics at UT; however, more qualified students, with stronger academic potential and promise, allows professors to more thoroughly teach courses, and make more progress in said courses.
If UTAD does not remain in the black with healthy athletic programs, then the funding for those programs will have to either come from public sources or athletics scholarships and sports will have to be cut.
Funding already comes from public resources. The UTAD would not be in the black without the subsidies. So, right now the UTAD is a net financial loss to both the institution and the state (on the assumption that the state subsidies would be going to the university and not the UTAD, without the AD).
We are not Vanderbilt. We cannot afford to absorb a money-losing athletics department into the university's endowment. We must maintain a profit from our athletics department.
We have a money-losing athletics department. We do not maintain a profit from the athletics department.
You do that by winning and bringing support in from alumni, students, and fans.
If you think that profit is solely a function of revenue, then your proposition would follow. However, expenses play a large role in that function. Thus, you must either raise revenue or (not an exclusive or) lower expenses.
This is a university that has produced the likes of Estes Kefauver, Howard Baker, John Cullum, Clarence Brown, and Dr. Richard Marius. James Agee, one of the great literary critics and writers of his time, attended Tennessee. They came here without requiring or needing rigorous entry-requirements to become successful in their careers. There are hundreds of thousands of Tennessee graduates just like them, successfully employed and contributing to communities around the world. We didn't need to become Stanford to give these people a launching point. We don't need the false ranking of a news-magazine to justify our worth as a university or the value of our alumni to our state and our nation.
And, Bill Gates never graduated from college. So, we do not need colleges, either.
We are also a University with an athletics department that has produced a Bobby Dodd, a Ray Graves, an R.A. Dickey, and a Charles Davis. Each of these men made a positive contribution to the reputation of the university in their post-college endeavors. Some of them you would not allow on our campus because they don't fit your perception of what a university should be. Yet our reputation and our public support as a university was built in large part by men and women who have made their name representing us in athletics.
If they were being admitted at the cost of more qualified applicants (particularly applicants that would pay their own way), then there is a problem. Great, some of them were successful and shined a positive light on UT. There are also plenty of athletes that have shined a negative light on UT. I do not bring them into the argument because it is not relevant; and, neither are the positive examples.
What is relevant is whether the academic institution must compromise on its mission to admit qualified applicants (those with academic merit, promise, and potential) and produce knowledgeable graduates with critical thinking skills. This is not happening at UT, due to UTs own policies regarding taking bad inputs into the function. One might object and say that the output is not happening anywhere, but the university has much less control over the output (although, the university, to include all universities, should consistently be suggesting to many students that they ought to go do something else with their lives).
On the mere belief that damaging athletics success somehow enhances the value of your diploma, you would have this university neuter its ability to compete and force it to become reliant on public funds for support.
I care little about the perceived value of a UT diploma. And, the UTAD is reliant on public funds for support.
