San Jose Getting Out of Division 1?

[50's PONY]

San Jose State's Academic Senate votes to limit sports funding

RECOMMEND WITHDRAWAL FROM DIVISION I-A AND THE WESTERN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE

Associated Press


SAN JOSE, Calif. - San Jose State's Academic Senate has voted to limit funding for sports teams and has recommended the school withdraw from Division I-A and the Western Athletic Conference.

The 21-11 vote, conducted by secret ballot Monday, was intended to send a message to the university's soon-to-be-named president that academics should come ahead of football in tight budget times.

The Academic Senate - a group of faculty, students, staff and administrators that advises the president - proposed that savings from athletics funding be transferred to academic programs

"We're not opposed to football per se, but Division I-A has costs we can't afford," said James Brent, the political science professor who pushed for withdrawal.

The senate vote is only symbolic - presidents have ignored faculty recommendations on athletic funding in the past.

But Brent said he hopes the vote will "counter what the president will hear from a group of very loud boosters who don't have the best interests of the university as a whole at heart."

The Academic Senate also voted to have the entire faculty vote on the question of withdrawal from Division I-A and the WAC in a referendum.

Monday's vote is the first formal faculty recommendation to emerge from a year-long debate over athletics funding. It comes as the university's budget tightens and the football program struggles to fill seats and win games.

The two finalists for the university president's job last week warned against taking hasty action over athletics funding and pointed out the benefits of intercollegiate athletics.

[EastStang]

I'm sure they'll love it when their donations dry up, and then they'll beg Gov. Schwartzennegger to up their funding.

[gostangs]

They will ignore the faculty - but frankly we need about 20 less div. 1 schools - just don't want us to be one of them.

[Southland]

I'm sure they'll love it when their donations dry up, and then they'll beg Gov. Schwartzennegger to up their funding.

I don't think so... he's the one who just cut the funding to all the UCs, CSUs, etc.

Finance has been a lingering problem for years, and it has already claimed football programs at CSU Fullerton ('94, one year after building a new stadium), CSU Long Beach ('95) and CSU Northridge ('03). Now you can add CSU San Jose, and next up... Fresno, which has major financial problems that don't get major press.

[Southland]

I'm sure they'll love it when their donations dry up, and then they'll beg Gov. Schwartzennegger to up their funding.

I don't think so... he's the one who just cut the funding to all the UCs, CSUs, etc.

Finance has been a lingering problem for years, and it has already claimed football programs at CSU Fullerton ('94, one year after building a new stadium), CSU Long Beach ('95) and CSU Northridge ('03). Now you can add CSU San Jose, and next up... Fresno, which has major financial problems that don't get major press.

[davidsmu94]

It's the defeatist attitude which is the real problem here. San Jose State's education obviously lacks any sort of innovative thinking. People who throw their hands ups saying "we can't afford" anything that they value are quitters in book, but in many ways so are we.

[Stallion]

What Faculty Senate wouldn't vote to end Division 1A Football? I know I grew up surrounded by these people. Their opinion is irrelevant and should largely be ignored.

[MizterTea]

It's the defeatist attitude which is the real problem here. San Jose State's education obviously lacks any sort of innovative thinking. People who throw their hands ups saying "we can't afford" anything that they value are quitters in book, but in many ways so are we.

maybe (no... probably) the people in California just don't care as much about football as Texans do

[ponyte]

Normally, one would just laugh at a story like this. However, since we faced a similar threat (Pye and the clowns that wanted to drop from Div I), one may take these stories a little more seriously. The processes and belief system that followed Pye has had lingering and long term consequences.

Yes, many say that the Pye model is dead and has been for years but that belief is based on an assumption that large organizations change overnight. And we all know that the changes needed post Pye have been very long and difficult in coming.

So to the athletes at San Jose, you have my sympathies as a remarkable transformation for the worse is quite possibly just around the corner.

[The PonyGrad]

What Faculty Senate wouldn't vote to end Division 1A Football? I know I grew up surrounded by these people. Their opinion is irrelevant and should largely be ignored.

Exactly. It is a conflict of interest. Can you imagine the "Atheletic Senate" voting on academic budgets!

[Eddie P]

Stallion is right. What faculty senate wouldn't vote to shrink to DivIII or do away with athletics all together for the "sake of academics?" Of course, this assumes their is absolutely no positive symbionic effect between athletics and the university as a whole (something proven in numerous manners) and that the "money spent on athletics" makes a clean lateral move to academic programs. This is the same type of thinking from people who babble: SMU should have spent that 50 million dollars they used on the football stadium on scholarships or in the philosophy department.