Colleges Increasing Spending on Sports Faster Than on Academics, Report Finds – NYTimes.com.
GROUCHO (Dean Quincy Adams Wagstaff ): Have we got a stadium?
FACULTY: Yes.
GROUCHO: Have we got a college?
FACULTY: Yes.
GROUCHO: Well, we can’t support both. Tomorrow we start tearing down the college.
—From Horse Feathers, 1932, starring the Marx Brothers
So, is Groucho responsible? Did a bunch of administrators see “Horse Feathers” and say to themselves, “Hey, he’s right.”
Of course, what they probably did say to themselves is that the college has to make money and on, and on, and on…and they forgot what Robert Maynard Hutchins wrote,
“…when an institution determines to do something…to get money it must lose its soul …” (See the complete quote at http://www.inside-higher-ed.com/david-riesmans-on-higher-education-the-academic-enterprise-in-an-era-of-rising-student-consumerism/)
Of course, “they” (in italics above) aren’t “they” anymore. “They” are a new breed that “they” let in – a new breed that lets in more and more of them.
Recent Comments