random facts, tidbits, articles and most importantly my thoughts about things that i find while aimlessly surfing the web...
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Architecture, College Football, Baseball, Hockey, March Madness, The Economy, Corporate Corruption, Incomptent Leadership, Tulane, Atlanta, Florida, etc.
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travacado's thoughts
or at least "others'" thoughts that I find interesting...
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Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Now it's Miami, Virginia Tech for ACC
In a strange twist to what has been a very strange process, the ACC's nine presidents voted Tuesday night to approve an expansion plan that would add Miami and Virginia Tech and form an 11-team league, people close to the process said.
The deal, if Miami and Virginia Tech accept, will exclude Boston College and Syracuse, which were slated for inclusion in the ACC when it decided to move forward with expansion about six weeks ago.
ACC commissioner John Swofford met with reporters outside his office just before midnight Tuesday but would not discuss the specifics of the meeting or confirm that any deal had been struck. But word leaked. The Washington Post and The New York Times also were reporting late Tuesday that the ACC had voted to add Miami and Virginia Tech. The Times reported the vote was 7-2.
"We hope to have an announcement in a couple of days," Swofford said, the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal reported. "There are no done deals at this point."
But when Swofford was asked if there was a need for another presidential teleconference, he replied, "I doubt it."
The three-hour meeting was the fifth in the past two weeks for an expansion process that has gotten bogged down in politics and competing agendas. Virginia Tech, which was thought to be completely out of the ACC's plans a week ago, got back in thanks to political pressure on Virginia President John Casteen. The ACC had completed site visits to Miami, Syracuse and Boston College but had not issued formal invitations.
In order for expansion to pass, seven of the nine ACC schools needed to vote yes. Duke and North Carolina opposed expanding to 12 teams, and political pressure from Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Attorney General Jerry Kilgore meant that Virginia could not vote for a plan that did not include Virginia Tech.
Thursday, the ACC raised the prospect of adding Virginia Tech as a 13th team to get Virginia's vote. But some of the schools already voting yes balked at that idea because they didn't want to split the league's revenues 13 ways.
Adding to the pressure on the ACC presidents was a lawsuit Virginia Tech and four other Division I football-playing Big East teams filed against the ACC. There also was pressure from the attorneys general in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, who were against ACC expansion because of its negative impact on Big East teams in their states.
So Tuesday night's meeting began with four apparent options:
A 12-team league that would include Boston College, Miami and Syracuse of the Big East.
A 12-team league that would include Virginia Tech but exclude either Boston College or Syracuse.
A compromise plan that had been floated by a number of parties and on Tuesday was endorsed by Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski: Inviting only Miami to make the ACC a 10-team conference, at least in the short run.
Remaining a nine-team conference.
While no one from the ACC would allow the information to be attributed to them, people close to the process said that adding only Miami and Virginia Tech achieved several goals.
First, it would keep the ACC in its geographical "footprint" rather than go so far north with Boston College and Syracuse. That would address the concerns from faculty that expansion would add to travel for student-athletes, particularly in non-revenue sports.
Adding Miami and Virginia Tech also upgrades ACC football with two teams that have been consistently in the top 10 in the past decade.
How quickly the ACC would move to add a 12th team could not be determined late Tuesday. But under NCAA rules, only conferences with 12 teams can hold a conference championship football game. The ACC will work to change the rule if it doesn't add a 12th team, those familiar with the situation said.
The ACC was under serious internal pressure to complete a deal Tuesday. Krzyzewski, one of the nation's most high-profile coaches, criticized his league's handling of the expansion process during a session with the media Tuesday.
"I think we haven't distinguished ourselves in doing this," said Krzyzewski. "I hope we mend fences because we've obviously gone into another person's yard with our tractor-trailer or our John Deere and knocked down a few trees."
If they want to join the ACC for the 2004-05 academic year, Miami and Virginia Tech have until Monday to inform the Big East of their intentions. If they miss that deadline, their exit fee for leaving the Big East increases from $1 million to $2 million. (By Tony Barnhart, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
TIDAL 6:17 AM
Thursday, June 19, 2003
Hokies back on ACC list
In an 11th-hour attempt to salvage its expansion plans, the ACC will consider inviting Virginia Tech to join three other Big East schools and potentially form a 13-team league.
Someone close to the ACC expansion process said late Wednesday night that the decision to reconsider Virginia Tech, which was excluded in the ACC's original expansion plans, came during a three-hour teleconference of the league's presidents Wednesday morning.
Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough, a former dean of the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, took part in that call from Blacksburg, Va., where he still has a home. He was there, according to an ACC official, to determine if Virginia Tech would be interested if an offer were extended. Clough met with Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger Wednesday night, according to reports by The Associated Press and the Washington Post.
Steger is expected to talk to Virginia Tech's Board of Visitors today and decide the next course of action.
Clough spoke with the Journal-Constitution twice on Wednesday and would only say, "It [expansion] is still being discussed and we still hope we can bring these talks to a collegial conclusion. I remain optimistic."
Clough did not return phone calls to his home in Virginia Wednesday night. Clough told The Associated Press, however, that he did not meet with Steger in an official capacity.
"It was a friend to a friend and I said any information I got from the meeting I would take back to my colleagues," Clough told the AP.
Inviting the Virginia Tech Hokies likely would remove the last major obstacle to ACC expansion. Boston College, Miami and Syracuse are the three Big East schools currently being targeted by the ACC. The conference, however, had commitments for only six of the seven votes it would need to extend the invitations.
Virginia -- one of three "no" votes, with Duke and North Carolina -- was being pressured to vote against expansion by Gov. Mark R. Warner because Virginia Tech had been excluded. If Virginia Tech receives an invitation, then Virginia President John T. Casteen would be free to cast the seventh vote.
To receive an invitation, however, Virginia Tech would have to withdraw from a lawsuit filed against the ACC, Miami and Boston College.
If Virginia Tech receives an invitation, its president will be put in a delicate situation. On May 6, Steger was in the ACC offices in Greensboro, N.C., exploring the possibility of leaving the Big East and joining the ACC.
When the ACC passed on Virginia Tech, the school joined four other Big East schools and filed suit June 6. At that time, Steger was critical of the ACC and publicly recommitted his school to the Big East. "If an [ACC] offer came today, we would not accept," Steger told USA Today.
Given what is at stake -- long-term financial security in a mega-conference -- Steger probably will have to swallow his pride and accept if an invitation is offered.
If Virginia Tech declines, then Casteen would be free to cast the seventh and deciding vote for expansion. Casteen was traveling in Europe Wednesday night.
No one Wednesday night could address how a 13-team conference would work or if it would be feasible. (By Tony Barnhart, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
TIDAL 6:49 AM
Sunday, June 15, 2003
Sponge Bob
Why is this man running for president?
Every so often, ABC's Note scolds pundits like me for not taking Bob Graham's presidential candidacy seriously. He's accomplished as a governor, well-versed in anti-terrorism as a senator, and hails from all-important Florida. He raised a quick $1 million just by hitting the phones while recovering from heart surgery. Well, good for him. But I'm not going to check his references till he explains why he wants the job.
Graham has had many chances to make his case. I've seen him speak at the April 9 Children's Defense Fund forum, the May 3 South Carolina debate, his May 6 campaign kickoff, a May 17 AFSCME conference, last weekend's Iowa Democratic Party picnic, and a town hall hosted by Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, at which Graham spoke and answered questions for 90 minutes. Each time, I've come away baffled at his failure to explain why anybody should vote for him rather than one of the other Democrats seeking the job.
At the town hall and the picnic, Graham joked that any CEO who ran a company the way Bush has run the economy would be fired, unless that CEO was a friend of Bush. It was a funny line. But it's the only funny line Graham has attempted. He's a serious guy. In many ways, that's admirable. Graham is from an older school of politics. He doesn't do sound bites. Ask about an issue, and he'll give you a terrific lecture on the problems and policy options. At the town hall, Graham was at ease discussing details of health care financing, agricultural production, energy technology, and how to structure the flow of intelligence within the government. His only screw-up, a reference to "Wade vs. Roe," was an error of style, not substance. His explanation of retirement financing was lucid and masterful. The guy knows his stuff.
Better still, he shows poise and maturity. He's got the best temperament in the race. I've never seen him get angry or defensive at hostile questions. He listens more than he talks. At the picnic, he broke out in song onstage. The lyrics were horrendous ("You've got a friend in Bob Graham ..."), and the singing was worse. But can you imagine John Edwards trying that?
The trouble is, Graham doesn't seem to know what he wants to do with the job. "To be elected president, you've got to meet some threshold tests," he told the town hall audience. First, "you've got to be prepared to take George Bush on … and then say what your vision and your direction would be." Second, you "have to have some fresh ideas" as to how to deal with the nation's problems. So what are Graham's vision and ideas? Search me. The guy had 90 minutes to explain them, and all he conveyed, briefly, was that he cares about the environment.
Graham's best-known line is that he's from "the electable wing of the Democratic Party." Reporters interpret this as a slap at Howard Dean, who claims to be from "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." The inference is that Graham is running as a centrist. But he isn't. He told the town hall crowd, "We need to look for alternatives to war. I think we went to war too quickly in Iraq." He urged more emphasis on "our diplomatic capability." At the picnic, he identified himself with Democratic "pragmatists," whom he defined as politicians with "executive experience" who seek "common-sense solutions." That, he said, is what he means by the "electable wing." But that isn't a wing; it's a résumé. And it doesn't distinguish Graham from Dean, who's supposedly leading the other wing.
In a way, the CEO joke is really about Graham's candidacy. Absent a distinctive agenda, he's just running as a better manager. At the town hall, a skeptic asked Graham what he would do to make Democrats "a progressive party" again. Graham could have answered the question, or he could have defended a more moderate platform. He did neither. "The most important [step] is to get the current incumbent out of the White House so you'd have the opportunity to seriously deal with some of these issues," he replied. How would Graham deal with those issues? He didn't say.
I'll gladly take Graham's candidacy seriously, as soon as he does. (By William Saletan, Slate.com)
TIDAL 12:19 PM
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Tulane board votes to stay 1-A
University leaders call for tougher academic standards in college sports
The Tulane University Board of Trustees voted Monday to keep Tulane athletics in Division I-A, and did so by approving a multi-year operating plan for the athletic program. The plan for athletics calls for meeting specific goals for generating revenues and reducing expenditures to reduce an annual $7 million athletic department deficit to an allowable subsidy not to exceed $2 million starting in fiscal year 2007.
"We’re committed to our Division I-A program," Tulane President Scott Cowen said. "We have put benchmarks there to make sure we are meeting all the expectations that we have set for ourselves that our community knows about. We are committed to it, and we will make sure that we meet the benchmarks."
The 29-member board cast 27 votes for remaining in Division I-A, with one abstention and one absentee, Jim Clark, who did not proxy a vote. The board had considered, due to financial concerns, dropping its football program entirely or dropping to Division III.
But on Tuesday, there was resounding unity for keeping Tulane in Division I-A, supported by the board and Cowen, who had come under public scrutiny during the process.
"Tulane University is incredibly important to this community, not only with it being the largest employer that we have in the city, but with what they bring in other aspects of college life to our community," said New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who attended the board meeting. "(Tulane) is lucky it has a board that will tackle something this difficult, and they tackled it with grace and professionalism, and came up with a decision that I think is in the best interest of this community."
An ad hoc committee of the board, which studied Tulane’s role in the changing world of intercollegiate athletics, had been divided for much of the process, since forming in the winter. But this weekend, chair Phil Greer said, the board came to an agreement that the best place for Tulane athletics is in Division I.
"I have no doubt that today, our plan is a plan supported by the board of administrators, and by this university, and we are all committed to make it happen," Cowen said. "But I can’t reiterate enough — we need the support of this community. Not just next year, but year in and year out. You have to stay with us. We have taken a leap of faith, now we want you to stay with us." (By Benjamin Hochman, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune)
TIDAL 6:23 PM
Sunday, June 01, 2003
Tulane's fiscal woes not limited to sports
University president faces wave of criticism
Although wrangling over the deficit-generating Tulane University athletics program has grabbed notice and led Tulane officials to consider moving it to a less-prestigious competitive level, many outside the university are unaware that every department has been under similar pressure to prevent fiscal bleeding.
The impending decision over whether to drop to Division III athletics will be made against a backdrop of campus debate over whether sports, widely regarded as a source of esprit de corps and alumni loyalty, should be forced to meet the same budgetary standards as academics. At the same time, many agree more money should be poured into core teaching and research activities if Tulane wants to keep pace with the nation's top research universities.
Budget scrutiny at Tulane intensified this year as the administration imposed a new "decentralized management" model, one requiring each of 14 units -- ranging from the architecture school to a bioenvironmental research center -- to cover its own costs through tuition and other fund raising. Such models, while new to Tulane, are common in higher education.
Although virtually every Tulane unit has reached, or is nearing, self-sufficiency, athletics is an exception, officials said. Moreover, the other units are tapped to cover $2 million of the athletics deficit, and they lose a shot at another $5 million in discretionary money that covers the remainder of the sports deficit, university Senior Vice President Yvette Jones said.
University President Scott Cowen set the tone for the wide-ranging campus debate May 12 at a campus forum.
"When it's all said and done, what I want for Tulane University is for it to be a great academic institution," he said. "That does not have to be at the exclusion of athletics, and I don't want you to read that, but (at) the end of the day I don't want the gentlemen in law school to say, 'We're No. 42, and Washington University and Emory (are ranked higher).' I want us to be at the very top. . . . My eye is always on that ball."
Tulane's board of trustees on Thursday deferred action until June 10 on whether to preserve Tulane's Division I sports program even as Athletic Director Rick Dickson and other Green Wave loyalists pleaded for a renewed commitment, for more time to sell season tickets and raise donations.
Cowen hasn't indicated whether he will offer a formal recommendation to the board.
Double standards
Although it is one of the nation's top 50 doctoral-granting universities in U.S. News & World Report's ranking of colleges, which distills statistics related to academic quality and budget resources, Tulane is feeling the strains of a relatively small endowment and comparatively low income from grants and donations.
As a result, Tulane can't match the pay offered to educators by many of its peer institutions, and some of its brightest professors move on. Those who stay see less-than-stellar support for the academic infrastructure, including library journals and research labs, officials concede.
Some faculty members, who fear that the school may be losing its competitive edge in academics, say it's about time athletics is held to tougher budgetary standards.
"Athletics should be dismantled or not subsidized as much. It costs a lot of money," said one professor who, fearing reprisals, requested anonymity. "If Tulane says that it wants to be a top-notch research university, they will have to have a top research environment, such as in salaries. They should buy a lot more books than they buy, they should subscribe to more journals."
But weighing different needs is a complex matter.
Because of the excitement and sense of identity they engender, sports programs claim a special place in university life, said Geoffrey Harpham, a former Tulane English professor and critic of athletics spending who recently became director of the National Humanities Center in North Carolina.
"It's not an altogether simple situation because athletics contributes so greatly to the currency of Tulane," he said. "The history department can hold a conference, but 25,000 people don't show up in Tulane sweatshirts."
Academic deans complain about the different treatment given athletics, Provost Lester Lefton said.
"To be honest, I have to tell them, 'It's the board that makes these decisions,' " he said.
The fiscal divide
With a $600 million operating budget, highly competitive students, strong medical and law schools, and well-known scholars, Tulane counts itself among the nation's university elite. But it is facing pressures similar to those confronting public and private colleges generally, with a long-term trend of costs topping the inflation rate and a growing realization that colleges may have to rethink how they deliver services, said Alan Guskin, a former Antioch University president who studies higher-education financing.
National surveys indicate Tulane, in fiscal terms, is at a disadvantage against those it considers its peers -- such as Duke, Emory, Vanderbilt and Washington University at St. Louis -- with less private giving, fewer dollars from federal grants and contracts, and a dramatically smaller endowment. The 2003 U.S. News & World Report rating of major universities pegged Tulane's alumni giving rate at 22 percent, placing it in the bottom quarter of top research schools.
Leaner resources at Tulane influence lower faculty pay, less library spending and higher tuition rates. This fall, Tulane will increase its tuition from $26,100 to $27,500, or 5.3 percent, despite concerns about sticker shock.
"We can get greedy and raise tuition, and the top students go elsewhere. We try to keep that under control," said John Koerner, chairman of Tulane's board. "It can become an addictive behavior, and pretty soon you get out of the realm of what's fair."
Although Tulane keeps many budget details private, Jones talks of a strong financial base. She is optimistic about prospects for adding to a $600 million endowment that spins off 5 percent of its value each year for spending, or roughly $30 million. Tulane is making steady progress in the initial, quiet phase of a $650 million fund-raising drive, and if goals are met, $300 million will go to the endowment, she said.
In contrast, some of Tulane's academic rivals have endowments in the billions. At 5 percent, Vanderbilt's $2 billion endowment in 2001 could spin off $100 million, for example, while Washington's $3.6 billion could generate $180 million.
But Jones isn't dismayed.
"All it takes is a $100 million gift here and there," she said. "I'm not as pessimistic as to say you can never win that race."
Budget stress
Some professors are less sanguine, however.
They cite the loss of talented faculty members and skirmishes over how much money grant-winning programs must divert to the central administration to cover overhead costs.
Budget stress can be detected in internal memos, such as one sent in March to faculty by Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Teresa Soufas. Tulane officials had said an early retirement program offering veteran professors lump-sum payments of up to double their base salary would have no net impact on the university's budget. But Soufas told colleagues the program, combined with the pay-your-own-way budget model, will impair faculty hiring.
"The chairs and directors and I have discussed the fact that by the end of the next academic year, 24 LAS faculty members will probably have retired through this program. . . . It will cost our budget approximately $3,000,000," Soufas wrote. "Our cost will thus be large. . . . For these reasons, I anticipate that the number of approved (faculty) searches for the coming year will be considerably reduced."
Lefton, Tulane's chief academic officer, doesn't support the more strident faculty members who say the academic setting is becoming "impoverished," but he acknowledged there are problems. Programs in cell molecular biology, biomedical engineering and anthropology, among others, need to add professors to reach their full potential, but money isn't available, he said. And Tulane can't match some outside job offers, he said.
"We are increasingly facing a raiding of our faculty," he said. "The best universities in the country are knocking on our doors."
Tulane's chemistry program lost a talented professor two years ago to the University of Colorado at Boulder, which offered better equipment and a bigger graduate program, said Mike Herman, Tulane's graduate school dean. Another is leaving for McGill University in Montreal, to fill an academic chair financed by the Canadian government, Herman said.
"It's often a salary issue, but it's also infrastructure issues. If you're a laboratory scientist, the support you get in terms of available equipment and staff to maintain them, the size of the graduate program -- all those things -- determine how successful you can be," Herman said. "Tulane might be able to match the salary, but if those schools have a stronger infrastructure, which comes from resources having been put in over a long number of years, they see it as in their interest to make the move."
Faculty keeping quiet
Tulane alumni and students rallied to the athletic department's defense after it became apparent that its Division I status was in jeopardy. Advocates said it would be foolish to give up national exposure the program offers, that doing so would damage student recruitment and Tulane's pursuit of donations for other university needs.
A few professors joined in. Victor Law, a chemical engineering professor, noted at one forum that a $5 million sports deficit would be a tiny slice of the university's total $600 million budget.
"It seems to me that $5 million is a relative pittance," he said. "We get more than $5 million worth of positive effect, whether it's publicity (or) people who would not give to the university if we didn't have an academic program."
Law was answered at the May 9 hearing by Lance Query, dean of libraries at Tulane, who said $5 million sounded like plenty of money to him, and that the board should consider "opportunity losses" when money is taken from academics.
"We have, I have to say, a very respectable library, but I'm constantly asked by new faculty, graduate students: 'Why don't you have this journal? Why don't you have this book? Why don't you subscribe to this database?' " Query said. "For $1 million, for a half-million dollars, I could turn this library from a respectable library to a world-class library, and the impact upon our student body in fact would be enormous."
In fact, Tulane invested millions of new dollars in its library collections in recent years, and it will need far more than $1 million to keep pace with most leading research universities. Tulane's $12.4 million in library spending in 2001 placed 89th among 113 institutions tracked by the American Association of Research Libraries. Among seven universities that Tulane cites as its peers, five spent more than $20 million annually on their libraries.
Query was virtually alone as a professor making a public case against deficit spending for athletics.
Many professors favor shifting to Division III sports competition and privately have told Cowen as much, but they didn't take a formal position with the Tulane board, said Meredith Garcia, a medical professor who is chairman of a University Senate budget committee.
"We've been down this road before and nothing ever happened, so we aren't getting that excited," Garcia said. "History tells us that preservation of the status quo is what's most likely to happen."
Debate over the wisdom of overhauling athletics is laced with talk of old and new studies. Some academics have forwarded to Cowen a copy of a 1995 analysis by former Tulane economics professor J. Ernest Tanner that says near-continuous athletics budget deficits between 1964 and 1994 deprived the university endowment of more than $100 million. The projection is based on tenuous assumptions: that all money saved by avoiding the deficits would have been invested in stocks, and that donations wouldn't drop in a backlash from sports backers.
"While it is true that intercollegiate athletics bestow untold benefits upon the university, these benefits must be weighed against the substantial costs to the financial well-being of the university," Tanner argued.
Meanwhile, Green Wave fans on Friday touted a new study by University of New Orleans economist Tim Ryan. Using figures from 2002-03 seasons, it shows that spending by teams and fans visiting for Tulane events add at least $42 million annually to the New Orleans economy.
"I've been saying this for years and I'm glad to see it confirmed!" one fan said in an e-mail message to The Times-Picayune. "Where are the city leaders?" (By Coleman Warner, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune)
Tulane chief endures Green Wave of criticism
For better or worse, Cowen shoulders load
His face painted as green as AstroTurf, there stood Tulane's president, as conspicuous as ever, cheering for his beloved Green Wave as it played its 2002 homecoming game at Tad Gormley Stadium.
Scott Cowen makes no bones about his love for sports in general and Green Wave athletics in particular. He played defensive end at the University of Connecticut. He can knowledgeably converse on a range of sports topics. He can even name the defending national champion in Division III football (Mount Union College).
But Cowen has spearheaded a meticulous look into the state of Tulane athletics, which spawned the Tulane board of trustees' ad hoc committee that since late winter has been analyzing Tulane's role as a Division I sports program. On June 10, the board could use the committee's findings in a vote to drop Tulane's football team, or move its entire athletic program, to Division III. It would be an unprecedented move.
Tulane athletics runs an annual cash deficit of $7 million. The financial burden of athletics on the university is inescapable as college sports becomes tougher in which to compete without sufficient financial backing. Tulane athletic director Rick Dickson said the Green Wave could field a "very competitive" Division III program for about $5 million per year.
Caught between his love for the Tulane Green Wave and Tulane University is Cowen, whose vision toward building a superior university could cause him to lose one of its staples.
"This would certainly rank among one of the more challenging issues I've confronted in my professional career," said Cowen, who took over the reins at Tulane in 1998 after a 23-year stay at Case Western Reserve University. "But I also get great comfort in the fact that it is a very important issue for Tulane University, and therefore it needs to be raised and it needs to be answered. And for that I will never be apologetic."
Gary Roberts, Tulane's faculty athletics representative and an expert in sports law, said Cowen's task isn't an easy one. "It's an extraordinarily difficult minefield to try to tiptoe through, and he's probably handling it as well as you could expect anybody to handle it," Roberts said. "The mere fact that he raised the issue is pretty courageous."
The core issue
While some herald Tulane's dilemma with the zest of a heavyweight fight -- Athletics vs. Academics -- Cowen wants them to understand it's not one or the other; they're both part of the equation in the quest to make Tulane the best it can be.
"This is not a struggle between athletics and academics," Cowen said. "Everyone would acknowledge, and me probably more so than others, that there clearly is a role for intercollegiate athletics in university life. But the key question really is, given our mission and aspiration as an institution, how best should we allocate scarce resources to accomplish that?
"The core mission of our university is learning and discovery. And we have an aspiration at Tulane University to be truly one of the outstanding institutions in the country. And our belief is if we are that, not only does Tulane University benefit from it, so does New Orleans, the state and the region. So I look at every particular issue we have at the institution through that lens, and that's what's important to me. It's incumbent then on people in my position, and the board's position, to say we have to be sure that we're allocating resources according to that mission and that aspiration."
Many athletics boosters say the issue is about something else. Vociferous proclamations from alumni and fans in Internet chat rooms say Cowen has it in for sports.
Cowen, however, has appeared immune to the criticism, constantly reminding himself why he sparked this process in the first place: to better Tulane University.
"Any time there's discussion of significant change in any organization, it makes people anxious," Cowen said. "It leads to mistrust, misunderstanding and feelings that people otherwise wouldn't have. It's been my experience that in circumstances like that, individuals need to blame somebody. They need to put a face to the problem. And when you're president of a university or CEO of a company, you're the face that happens to be most visible."
And as difficult as the current debate is, Cowen, as the university president, had a duty to delve into it, Roberts said. "Sports fans have to realize that the university doesn't exist to entertain the public. It exists to educate our students," Roberts said. "As long as we can run an entertainment business over there in a way that helps to further our mission, then that's terrific, we're happy to do it. But it seems to me that if you're looking at a deficit the size of the one we've been looking at, it's his legal obligation to at least raise the question."
Unenviable position
While Cowen has received praise from some for his five-year study of numerous facets of the university -- with the athletics study the most public -- the scrutiny from others has snowballed. The buzzword has been "distrust."
For instance, although the ad hoc committee was formed in January, it wasn't until May 9 and 12 that Cowen held public forums for students.
Julia Mott, a 2003 Tulane graduate and New Orleanian who's an avid Green Wave sports fan, said she wishes Cowen had not waited until a month before the trustees' vote to reach out for student input.
"I think it's really sad that the input couldn't be heard. And if they were doing this re-evaluation, perhaps it shouldn't have been a secret," Mott said. "If perhaps there had been some questioning of the students, just some discussions, . . . the people wouldn't feel that the university was hiding things from them. That's kind of the feeling I've heard from alumni and students."
At the second forum, Cowen explained that that there were two reasons student input wasn't requested until May. He said the board felt it was important that the ad hoc committee first took time to grasp the complexity of the issue before seeking outside input. And, he said, if the university had made the situation public in the spring, it could have been harmful to the athletic department's recruiting.
Board member Larry Israel described Cowen's role in this process as "somewhere between difficult and impossible. . . . I'd hate to be in his position."
At this week's meeting, the board was presented the findings of the committee and given the pros and cons of staying in Division I as well as dropping the football program or moving all sports to Division III. A special session has been called for June 10, when the board likely will make its decision.
Trust in the system
In regard to his role on the board, Cowen said he's just "one of the 29. I have one vote." But his opinion, which he wouldn't divulge, could be requested at the June 10 meeting.
"I think my role all along has been primarily, if not exclusively, listening to all the constituencies out there and just sort of sifting through all of that," Cowen said. "So when the time comes for me to offer some final thoughts to the board about this, I've really waited as long as I could to make sure that I've heard as much as I could about the issues."
Ad hoc committee member Billy Slatten described the swaying power he feels Cowen has: "He's the president of the university, but it depends on what he does. If he opposes it vehemently, it could be a problem. . . . Why have the ad hoc committee if you're not going to do what they recommend? That's a lot of wasted time. But I don't think that will happen, because that would really cause a lot of bad feelings."
For his part, Cowen is calm and candid.
"I really have no fear, to be honest with you," he said. "I have great trust in the process we have followed, and the fact that this decision is being made by a board of administrators, all of whom have long-term connections to Tulane University, many of whom live in New Orleans. They have been longtime supporters of the institution. I believe their collective wisdom will lead us to the right decision. It will then be incumbent on us, if it does lead to any change -- and I'm not saying that it necessarily will -- to make sure people understand why this is in the best interest of the institution, realizing reasonable people may disagree with that." (By Benjamin Hochman, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune)
TIDAL 8:02 PM
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