Sports success has perpetuated the Southeastern Conference’s reputation as a place where athletics flourish and academic priorities sometimes take a lesser role. As president of the University of Florida, J. Bernard Machen has worked hard to balance the two at one of the league’s highest-profile institutions, both athletically and academically. Here are excerpts from a recent conversation with The Chronicle.
Q. When you came to Florida, five years ago, you talked candidly about the challenge of being thought of as a jock school when you were working hard to improve your academic profile. What challenges do you and other SEC schools face in overcoming the perception that you’re all about sports?
A. I’m not as uncomfortable now as I used to be. We’re feeling much better about the recognition we’re getting for our academic programs, primarily because of our faculty’s national visibility. We’ve also built a lot of academic buildings in the last five years and are doing a much better job of pushing our academic message. And students that could go to almost any school in the country are coming to Florida.
Q. But you’re still known more for sports than academics, wouldn’t you say?
A. You can’t run away from your notoriety in athletics. But you can make sure you’re known for doing things the right way. One of the things that’s happened since I came here is that I take a significant role in the recruiting of coaches. We graduate our student-athletes, and we don’t get into any of these scandals like at Memphis or [other universities].
Q. You’re on a campus where you’re constantly talking about how little money you have. What’s been the reaction to the big raise you just gave your football coach, and how have you worked to assure faculty members that their interests are still the priority even though you’ve had to make cuts?
A. This spring the athletics department made a $6-million commitment to the university’s budget, the biggest they ever had, right in the middle of all our budget discussions. That was very well received by faculty. I made the decision to adjust Coach Meyer’s salary, frankly because it could be even worse than this next year. I got two e-mails … that were critical of [the coach’s raise].
I think when you look at what’s going on in athletics, that football brings in 90 percent of the revenue and gave $6-million to the university, that is not lost on everybody. That doesn’t mean that there’s not inequity out there. But engineers make more than historians, and neurosurgeons make more than dentists, so what are you going to do?
Q. When your athletics department has all this new ESPN money, these riches of NCAA titles, the highest-paid coaches and athletic director around, how do you keep it from spinning beyond your control?
A. I don’t, I don’t make any pretense about that. … The AD is sitting in the waiting room outside my office right now—we meet regularly, we make a lot of joint decisions. The timing of the salary change was dictated by the university, not athletics. You have to be involved, and if you’re not, you could get in a situation where things do get out control.
