Undergraduate Education Comes Up Way Short Next to Sports

books:

	• Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Is Crippled Undergraduate Education Murray Sperber Holt Paperbacks, 2001 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 31 reviews view larger image
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A tale of two reviews

Sperber does a lot wrong in this book. His title is misleading. He does spend a good amount of time discussing college sports and their effect on the university, but he also takes long extended detours into topics such as honors programs, college rankings, professors' teaching habits, and the shocking lack of homework and studying done by students. Really, he's taking aim at the university as a larger entity. He commits just about every logical fallacy in the book (case studies used to prove large sweeping theories, post hoc logic, ecological fallacy), although really there isn't any way to experimentally study the variables he's considering. Sperber also comes off sounding like the nerdy kid from college who hated the dumb jocks in high school and college and now that he's got a job and they're probably all on skid row (or so the fantasy goes), he will now have his revenge. If this describes you, you will love this book. If the only pleasure you have in life is watching State U play football on Saturdays, then you will find Sperber as nothing but a killjoy. Despite all these problems, Sperber awkwardly brings up a few good points. Why is our culture so obsessed with sports and alcohol? Has the undergraduate diploma become a simple right of passage to which the middle and upper classes are entitled to? His base argument seems that either too many people go to college nowadays or we need to re-think the cultural mythology of what a college degree really means.

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Thought provoking, but flawed

As a faculty member at a school (the University of South Alabama) that recently decided to field a Division I football team, I read Beer & Circus with some interest.

The best two things that one can say about this book are a) it is an entertaining book that you want to read & b) it is thought provoking. I would recommend Beer & Circus to anyone interested in the role of athletics at the contemporary university.

However, I have two criticisms:

1) Perhaps the most pointed criticism I would make is that Sperber does not provide sufficient evidence to back his basic argument - that college sports ruin undergraduate education. Yes, there clearly is a link between partying & sports. But how do we know that sports are responsible for all of the other problems that Sperber cites in undergraduate education? Where is the link? His argument is unconvincing on this crucial point.

2) Sperber's "solutions" are entirely unrealistic. He urges schools to "imitate Rice" (page 252). This is completely unrealistic. Not every school can be a wealthy, private institution filled with the best undergraduate students. By definition, most schools - and their students - are average.

Sperber urges (page 263) large, state-sponsored schools to cut dramatically their undergraduate enrollments. This will never happen. State-supported schools depend on taxpayer support. Is it feasible for these institutions to tell large segments of their populations, "Your child is simply not intelligent enough for an undergraduate education. Moreover, we are going to take the tax dollars that you pay for higher education and spend them on enhancing undergraduate education for students who are more more deserving and smarter than your kids"?

Finally he urges schools to reward professors for excellent teaching. He never mentions that good teaching is very difficult to assess. If you want to reward great teaching, you have to find a way to measure the quality of teaching first. Most schools simply have not figured out a way to do this.

In summary, Beer & Circus is a thought-provoking, but flawed, book.

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imperfect, but important

For all its faults, this book honestly changed the course of my life. I read it shortly before applying to college. I was, and remain, a serious college sports fan, and prior to reading Sperber's book I looked at teams that did well in football and figured, well, I'll go to one of those universities. Then I read Sperber's book.

Sperber argues that sports-and-party-based frat-boy culture is being capitalized on by colleges, who market their party atmosphere and great sports teams to draw in an ever larger pool of applicants. They then take the tuition money and spend it on their prestigious grad programs, not to mention millions for the advertising, er, athletic department, which draws in ever more applicants. Meanwhile, the universities don't spend any significant money on their undergrad programs. They hire great faculty but then treat their undergrads to 750-person lecture halls taught by assistants, not the hot-shot professors that are advertised. They have rampant grade inflation. They accept virtually everyone and let just about anyone through, degrading the quality and relevance of the undergraduate degree. Thousands of students might not learn much or get a good, comprehensive education, but they will have a drunken good time doing it, and the university still gets the tuition money.

This book has some problems. It makes sweeping sociological generalizations of college culture (any school with 30,000 or 50,000 students cannot be fairly divided into three or four categories of student, as Sperber attempts). It has an obsession with the movie Animal House. It sometimes strays from its general thesis into other complaints. It's easy to come away with the general impression that a degree from a large state school is worthless, as is the education. (I think a fairer statement would be that you CAN get a good education from a large state school, but it's very easy to get a degree WITHOUT having gotten one.)

But the important message is this: big-time universities are using big-time college sports to draw in collegiates to an entertainment-based college experience, skimping on their undergrad programs, and using the tuition money to further fund sports teams and their extensive graduate programs to enhance their name and prowess. It's an academic pyramid scheme. The moral: for graduate education, go to Division I State U. For undergrad, try a DIII liberal arts school. Largely because of this book, that's what I did, and I haven't been disappointed.

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Undergraduate Education Comes Up Way Short Next to Sports

There is not much doubt that undergraduate education for the typical student at large universities is most unsatisfactory: one is, with few exceptions, a nonentity with no opportunity to shape the educational experience. The only option is to follow the rules; then it is swim or sink. Furthermore, there is no doubt that forming farm teams for professional leagues with substandard students has no place in a university.

The author shows through his survey data that major sports teams in Division 1-A of the NCAA give a focal point to the incessant partying that occurs at most major, large universities. It is the essential point of the book that college administrators are more than willing to give undergraduates "beer and the circus" of big-time sports in lieu of drastically overhauling undergraduate programs. The need for tuition dollars leads large colleges to pack freshman courses, virtually precluding a chance to learn. Sports and partying is the cynical substitute.

Clearly, the prestige focus of top college officials precludes quality education for most students. It is all about image and reputations. Good sports teams increase recognition. So do adding prestigious faculty, engaging in research for corporate America, and having special, honors education for a select minority of undergraduates. The author makes abundantly clear that well-known faculty and elaborate research do not benefit the typical student. Furthermore, athletic programs are invariably a drain on the finances of the university. Even with Fat TV contracts, athletic programs are net losers.

The author breaks down the main student subcultures into "collegiate, vocational, rebel, and academic." They have different goals and different problems interacting with the substandard educational regime. The fact that the party element, the collegiate group, is content, or resigned to, with the current educational situation hardly justifies the de-emphasis on education.

The author does briefly touch on the purposes of college education. Is college mostly a social experience; is it to obtain job skills; or is it to be liberally educated. And do colleges actually support all of those goals for all students.

There is much wrong with universities and the author makes some effort to shed light on the problems. But much more can be said. Should universities perform a special social role, or are they simply big corporations looking out for the bottom line, cutting costs where they can, while paying lip service to a grand mission? It is clear that universities will not perform that mission with the distorting impact of big time sports.

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Excellent!

Finally someone speaks the truth!
Dr. Sperber is a leading proponent for reforming the NCAA and it's about time people start listening...