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FSEC receives update from Corrigan Committee
By MARY COCHRANE
Contributing Editor
In what he called a "rehearsal" for two public meetings, UB Law School Dean Nils Olsen spoke to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee yesterday about the Corrigan Committee, which he chairs and which is working to determine the future of UB's intercollegiate athletics program.
The committee will hold public meetings from 7-9 p.m. today at the United Way of Buffalo and Erie County office at 742 Delaware Ave., Buffalo, and at the same time next Tuesday in the Center for the Arts on the North Campus.
President John B. Simpson formed the 13-member committee—which includes UB staff, faculty and administrators—to review the June 2005 evaluation of UB's athletics programs by Gene Corrigan, former athletic administrator and intercollegiate athletics consultant.
By the time the committee began meeting last fall, according to Olsen, "many of the issues that were raised had already been addressed."
These included keeping UB in Division 1-A, a decision that Simpson made independently before forming the committee, Olsen said.
Scott Danford, associate professor of environmental psychology in the School of Architecture and Planning, asked if the committee had considered "other alternatives at the Division 1-A level, including non-scholarship 1-A programs or conferences that would be closer in terms of our academic peers."
"I thought that it was unusual that this wouldn't even be considered by the committee," Danford said.
"This committee is charged by the president to provide advice to help inform his decisions on these questions," Olsen said.
"Did he tell you not to look at these issues?" Danford asked.
"The committee takes the position that the decision had been made and that it was not within our charge," Olsen said. "Our charge was not to give a decision as to whether the president's decision was correct, but to provide data and recommendations that could help inform the decisions that had not yet been made."
The Corrigan report strongly recommended that UB hire a new athletics director, which was done when Warde J. Manuel assumed that position in July 2005. Olsen referred to Manuel as "one of the very good hires of the university."
The report also advised UB to maintain academic standards of its student-athletes, something "that has received support already," Olsen said.
"This was one of the first significant changes Manuel made upon becoming athletic director. Athletic-student performance at least equals and is sometimes marginally better than the average performance," Olsen said. "That's certainly not true across every sport. Warde (Manuel) is not resting on these statistics, but is actively seeking to significantly enhance opportunities for tutoring and organized academic support."
In response to a question from William Coles, assistant vice provost for the Educational Opportunity Program, about student-athlete scholarships, Olsen said, "UB is about in the middle" of the Mid-American Conference in terms of scholarship funding, as well as in coach salaries.
Another Corrigan report recommendation was that UB offer "unambiguous administrative support" to the athletics program.
"I think this has been taken care of by President Simpson by his words and by his actions since the report was made," said Olsen. "He has, in fact, confirmed his support by making available to the new athletic director one-time funding that has enabled him to do additional improvements in the program. Most importantly under the leadership of John (Simpson) and Satish (K. Tripathi, UB provost), the athletic director now meets on a regular basis with the vice presidents, deans and provost so the athletics program is now much more a part of the university's resource and allocation process as opposed to the way it was before and is at many universities, where it's kind of private and is done through side deals. It is integrated in terms of all the strategic planning that is going on, whether it is facility-based or budget-based, and I think this is a very important improvement."
Remaining issues that still need to be addressed include:
Creating "the right program at the right size."
When asked if the committee would be recommending that certain sports be dropped from the UB program, Olsen replied: "We're looking at the question of right-sizing and there will be an appropriate discussion and a very cautious one, I'm sure. The charge of the committee wasn't really to recommend elimination of sports. We may recommend to not eliminate any. I don't know. We may recommend to add or not to add. The Corrigan report identified two sports that he thought might be relevant-hockey and lacrosse. As you can tell from my remarks, I think there is really a very strong reason to consider lacrosse because there is a cultural connection that is particularly salient in this area. It's also an area I think that the university could use some improvement in. That's just my thinking and not the committee's."
He said that the issue of "right-sizing" the athletics program "has certainly engendered the largest amount of interest.
"The reference (in the Corrigan report) was that the number of sports that UB mounts in Division 1-A is the largest of the conference we're in and is probably on the high side of all but the largest of the intercollegiate athletic programs. He raised the issue of whether UB can afford to mount competitive teams in all the areas that we offer athletic programs, and conversely, are there any sports that might be appropriate to consider adding. So this was neither addition nor subtraction; it was both."
Gender equity often is assumed to be the cause when particular sports are dropped from a program, Olsen said.
"That is not the case at UB, which has a very good record of gender equity with the support of the president of the university and of our legislative delegation, which for a number of years now has given extra payments to the athletic department to ensure that UB maintains its strong record of gender equity," Olsen said. "It's simply not a direct concern at UB. It's an indirect concern because any decision made will have an effect on gender equity. But this (committee) isn't being driven by any need to reduce the number of male athletes or the number of scholarships for male athletes. It is basically being done to ensure a competitive and cost-effective program."
Identifying and providing financial support.
"The inclusion of athletics in the resource-allocation process is a major step toward addressing the issue of expenses rationally," Olsen said. "There was recognition in the consultant's report that a steady and appropriate base of funding was quite important to achieve highly competitive athletic teams at UB, given the conference we're in-the Mid-American Conference-which is a highly competitive conference with nationally ranked teams in the major sports."
The athletics budget totals $19.1 million, of which $4.5 million comes from ticket sales and corporate sponsorships, $6 million from undergraduate student athletics fees ("there is no graduate athletics fee at the moment," Olsen said), $6.2 million from UB and state support, and $3 million from a one-time investment request from the state.
Picking sports for championship support.
"Many universities will have two levels of support," Olsen explained. "One is to field a basic competitive team that will be in the running for high success over the year and the other is to fund certain sports at a higher level with an aim of achieving championship status both in the conference and perhaps even beyond. There's a recognition that that is more costly."
The committee, which has been meeting "about every week" since last fall, Olsen said, has met with each of the UB team coaches individually, with student-athletes in a three-hour meeting, and with each administrative unit within the Division of Athletics.
"We've also received a lot of input from the more organized groups, a surprisingly large number of amateur sports groups, that have a very strong interest" in UB sports, Olsen said, adding that the committee has reached out to public school athletics programs, to suburban high school sports programs and to donors to UB Athletics.
"I made sure we were in contact with the Iroquois confederacy because the link between lacrosse and the Iroquois is a profound one, which in some ways would build a significant connection between UB and its indigenous neighbors," Olsen said.
He added that the committee hopes to complete its assessment and submit a report during April.
"The bottom line is this has to be a competitive program across the board," Olsen said. "It has to be one that has the same sort of expectations of success that we hold academic programs to; one that has a clear, transparent and successful academic-support element. So we're looking at all the sports from those perspectives."
Comments can be submitted to the committee at corriganchair@buffalo.edu.