Here is an interesting article about the history of the Ivy league and the member Universities’ attitudes toward sport.
The Ivy is never going to be the Southeastern Conference—and nobody is suggesting it should be. The schools don’t need the exposure of sports to attract students and alumni donations. But some of the league’s alumni complain that the schools offer their students the best of everything, except in this one area. “Why not give them the same opportunities and the same platform in athletics that you do in academics?” says Marcellus Wiley, a former NFL defensive end who played at Columbia in the 1990s. “I think they should revisit everything.”
If we take the objective to be maintaining reputation and attracting donations then there is a broader question. Why is the concentration among schools which compete on academic excellence so much higher than among those that compete on athletics? Competition for dominance in sport appears to be more costly and occurs at a higher frequency that the competition for academic excellence. Some possible reasons:
- There is more variance in academic talent than in talent in sports. Thus the top end is thinner and the market is smaller.
- There is more continuity in academic strength purely because of numbers. A bad recruiting class for the basketball team a few years in a row and you are back to square one. A freshman class at Harvard is large enough that variations wash out.
- It is easier to throw money at sport. One coach makes the whole program. Assessing the talent of faculty and attracting it with money is more complicated. And maybe irrelevant.
I would like to believe 1 but I don’t. I would like not to believe 3 but its hard. I do believe 2.
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May 29, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Brian Burke
There may be an apparent high concentration among schools which compete on academic excellence. That doesn’t mean there is one. And I think that’s the difference. Academic excellence is very hard to measure compared to athletic excellence, so academic reputation is a substitute.
May 30, 2009 at 8:30 am
Matt
Definitely #3. Think about how hard it is to establish a reputation as a good academic school vs. a good athletic school. Gonzaga, South Florida, Boise State, and probably some others have recently gained a reputation as good athletic schools, at least in one sport, partly by pouring in money and also partly by historical accident. All of the schools with academic reputations have had them for 50+ years. I think there is a notion amongst the general public that schools only recently pushing their academic reputations are full of hot wind. Investment in athletics is much more likely to succeed.
May 31, 2009 at 11:56 am
Charlie
We can’t measure which schools are academically superior, but we can determine winners in sports. What indicators would we look to in order to determine “winners” in academics? The Ivies win top academic credentials by default, but sports teams must constantly battle to stay on top.