Faculty: Let's talk about what OU spends on sports

Some faculty senators continued their questioning of Ohio University's spending on intercollegiate athletics Monday night, just as Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit was bringing up the difficult budget challenges academics will face in the coming year.

At her first Faculty Senate meeting at OU, Benoit fielded tough questions from senators regarding the university's budget situation and priorities, continuing a debate from the past academic year over OU's funding of the athletics department.

"I as an academic am profoundly concerned that intercollegiate athletics seems to be off the table," said Steve Hays, longtime professor of classics and world religion and senator from the College of Arts and Sciences. "My department teaches courses in religion that expects of freshman students that they will question their traditional beliefs, which is a tough thing to do... There's something wrong with an institution if we can't take the medicine we prescribe to students."

There is a connection between athletics and academics in enrollment, student experience, donor involvement and income generation, the provost contended. She brought up her experience at the University of Missouri, where she said the university community had a similar conversation about athletics and academics. When the Missouri's football team experienced success, enrollment shot up, Benoit recalled.

Hays, however, seemed unimpressed. "The experience of Missouri in coming to national prominence and enjoying a surge of enrollment and money because of that is unlikely to be replicated at Ohio University," he argued. "It is not reasonable to expect of faculty that we will cooperate as much as you might like in gearing down the central function of the university."

Hays called for the issue of athletics spending to be part of the public discussion, and Benoit told him that it already is.

"The accountability of the athletics program is not off the table," Benoit said. "There is definitely much conversation about the kind of accountability."

President Roderick McDavis' chief of staff, Becky Watts, added to Benoit's comments on Tuesday. Because the university already has the minimum number of sports, 16, allowed by the NCAA to remain a Division 1 athletics program, OU will not look to cut sports but will look to increase efficiencies across the department, Watts said.

Still, many Faculty Senators expressed displeasure over the amount of money the athletics department receives each year. In the 2008-2009 fiscal year, the department spent $18.7 million while generating $4.1 million in revenues, and ran a $1.8 million deficit, according to the university's budget.

Some faculty said the expense may not be worth it.

"The athletics department drains resources at a time when academics are being threatened," said Faculty Sen. Joseph Slade from the Scripps College of Communication.

In an interview Tuesday, OU Athletics Director Jim Schaus defended his department, though, saying that Intercollegiate Athletics (ICA) contributes in both tangible and intangible ways to the camps community.

"It is worth it," Schaus declared. "It's a worthy investment. Just because some don't appreciate it does not make it unworthy."

Schaus agreed with Benoit that the national exposure a Division 1 athletics program brings to campus benefits enrollment and campus life. He estimated that OU may well receive $20 million in exposure from athletics programming, since other schools OU's size have reported that figure. OU's total economic impact to Athens County is $21.3 million, he said, as reported in a recent study by Ming Li, professor of recreation and sports at the university.

The athletics department functions with a skeleton staff and cut $700,000 and 10 positions from its budget last year alone, Schaus said. Departments at the university cannot all be painted with the same brush when it comes to finances, he added.

Every year the athletics department runs a deficit because over the last two decades there has been a lack of investment in the program, Schaus said. The athletics department faces higher cost-of-living increases than other departments because of expenses such as student travel and insurance, and this is where most of the deficit comes from, he explained.

"We are not spending money on new things. We're spending it on these cost-of-living increases," Schaus said. "This creates a gap."

The department has to do some catch-up work to make up for the lack of university investment Schaus said, and at a time when other programs are cutting, the athletics department may need extra help from the university.

The resources that the athletics department receives, though, cannot be spent on academics anyways, argued Athletics Director Schaus. The money comes from student fees, which can only be used for student services, unlike tuition or state money that is used to fund academic departments.

Some faculty, though, argue that student fees could be decreased and tuition increased, which wouldn't change what students pay each quarter but rather send more money to academics.

The university controls how much money it charges for tuition and student fees, and persuading the Board of Trustees to adjust that ratio may not have been too difficult, Faculty Senate Chair Joe McLaughlin said in an interview after Monday's meeting. The president persuaded the board to increase tuition, and he could have also asked them to change the student fee-tuition ratio.

Throughout last week, faculty members called into question the study by the Department of Recreation Studies that found the athletics department's (ICA's) total economic significance at over $21.3 million.

"The economic impact study states the obvious," Hays said after the meeting. "If you get a lot of money and you spend it, you have an impact."

It is really OU students who make the huge impact on Athens County, because $11.9 million of the $21.3 million comes from student fee money that the athletics department then spends in the county, noted Guido Stempel, distinguished professor emeritus of journalism, in an interview Tuesday.

"Without the faculty this wouldn't be possible," Stempel said. "People come here to take courses as part of a degree program...We have 16 varsity sports because of the work the faculty does."

Li defended his study, saying that the $11.9 million that the university spends on athletics should be included in the study because this money is pumped into the community through salaries and scholarships.

As for her reaction to her first Faculty Senate meeting as executive vice president and provost, Benoit said the conversation was good.

"I'm not surprised athletics came up. We are trying to establish whether athletics has an economic impact so I'm not surprised it came up," Benoit said after the meeting.