The past several days have provided a crash course for the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s new president in the delicate balancing act presidents face when juggling the demands of big-time sports and top-notch academics.
Mark S. Schlissel, a former provost at Brown University, stepped into the fray of major-conference athletics when he became Michigan’s president, in July. Dr. Schlissel, an internist and biochemist, is one of at least three Ivy League provosts who have recently landed presidencies at major public research universities, where a certain amount of culture shock can be expected.
But Dr. Schlissel touched an especially sensitive nerve this week, when he spoke of concerns about the academic success of Michigan’s athletes, prompting him to apologize for remarks that raised hackles on and off the campus.
The episode highlights the charged nature of college athletics and the need for presidents to tread carefully when speaking out, experts told The Chronicle. It also illustrates how much the unprecedented scrutiny of college sports today weighs on the minds of college leaders.
Dr. Schlissel’s troubles began at a faculty meeting this week, when he said that he was concerned that the university was accepting athletes who couldn’t succeed at a college as rigorous as Michigan.
His comments were reported in the student newspaper, and while some found his candor refreshing, others bristled. He then publicly apologized to the university’s head football coach and its athletic director.
On Tuesday he clarified his remarks in a question-and-answer column that was published by the university. His earlier statements, the column said, “did not provide a full picture of the situation.”
“I have learned how challenging it is to pursue excellence in sport at the intercollegiate level while progressing towards graduation at a university as academically rigorous as ours,” the president said.
Dr. Schlissel was traveling on Wednesday and unavailable for comment.
Athletics in the Spotlight
The controversy occurred at a time of heightened scrutiny of college sports following revelations that, for nearly two decades, athletes at one of the nation’s premier public universities, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, had been steered into sham classes where they could earn easy grades and remain eligible to play.
In his comments on Monday, to Michigan’s Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, Dr. Schlissel reportedly said that some athletes on the campus “can’t honestly, even with lots of help, do the amount of work and the quality of work it takes to make progression from year to year.” Football players’ graduation rates had been “terrible” until recent years, he said, adding that he was taking his time finding a new athletic director who shares his views about academic integrity.
The search, he said, was “a time sink.”
In Tuesday’s statement, the president said he had apologized to the football coach, Brady Hoke, and had asked him to convey his apologies to the team, and added that he planned to do the same when he returned to the campus. He extended the apology to James T. Hackett, the university’s interim athletic director. Mr. Hackett replaced David Brandon, whose relationship with the university’s Board of Regents had apparently been strained. Mr. Brandon’s resignation followed loud student protests over the football team’s decision to leave a Wolverine quarterback in a game after he suffered a serious blow to the head.
The first point Dr. Schlissel made in his attempt to clarify his position was that the university is in “full compliance” with the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s practice-hour regulations.
“In several sports, including football, there was a period where our academic performance was not as high as we would like it to be,” the president said. “But in recent years, the university and athletic department have been proactive in enhancements with our Academic Success Program, and recent data suggest improvement in NCAA Academic Progress Rates, which is a real-time measure of academic performance.”
Academic success, he said, is a key goal for all of the university’s coaches, including Mr. Hoke.
‘A Charged Arena’
A former college president who now advises campus leaders said Dr. Schlissel’s experience wasn’t surprising.
“What happened was that he thought he was having a private conversation, brainstorming with faculty about things that he heard,” but that his remarks, fanned by social media, quickly went public, said Susan Resneck Pierce, a former president of the University of Puget Sound who advises colleges, presidents, and boards on governance, curriculum, and other matters.
“Athletics is such a charged arena at so many institutions, not just at Division I institutions. I’ve advised presidents at DIII schools who have found themselves caught in the middle of tremendous controversy,” said Ms. Pierce, who is president of SRP Consulting LLC.
“One of the hardest lessons presidents learn is the need to weigh very carefully the impact of every statement they make, not only in public, but also in private conversations,” she added.
Apologizing when you’re wrong “takes leadership and courage, and is the right thing to do,” Ms. Pierce said.
Mr. Hoke mentioned the president’s apology and clarification during his weekly news conference on Wednesday.
“The one thing you learn being a former player and also a coach is that you can only play so long, and that’s what the Michigan degree is all about,” the football coach said. Because Michigan is “truly an academic institution,” he said, “that degree will last forever.”
He added that all 69 seniors have graduated during his four years as coach, and he touted the team’s Academic Progress Rate—975, its highest ever. The NCAA uses the APR to measure eligibility and retention rates for Division I teams. Squads that fall below a 930 four-year average, which translates to about half of the athletes’ eventually graduating, are ineligible for postseason play.
A faculty-governance leader said on Wednesday that she had heard from a few faculty members who wished the president hadn’t apologized for his remarks, but she said she felt that Dr. Schlissel was probably responding to the public misperception that he was criticizing the players.
“The president has been trying to emphasize that the University of Michigan is a premier academic institution first and foremost,” Sally Oey, a professor of astronomy who serves as vice chair of the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, wrote in an email to The Chronicle.
But, given the importance of athletics in uniting the campus and providing public visibility, “it’s important that elevating academics should not be seen to undermine the enthusiasm and excitement surrounding athletics,” she added. “I think most faculty members understand what the president is trying to do and sympathize with the difficulty of walking that tightrope. But we really yearn for there to be equal excitement whenever our students win academic competitions, not just athletic ones!”
The committee’s chair, Scott E. Masten, a professor of business economics and public policy, said most faculty members were sympathetic over the tight spot the president found himself in after what he thought was a casual conversation. “What this whole incident probably illustrates best,” he said, “is just how much of a distraction big-time athletics has become to the central purpose of universities.”
