University of Florida Eliminates Computer Science Department, Increases Athletic Budgets.
23rd April 2012
“What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?”
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
“They are merely conventional signs!
One must, after all, have priorities. John Henry Newman once wrote about The Idea of a University but obviously he was never in Tuscaloosa on Game Day.
April 23rd, 2012 at 07:14
Here we see the fruits of college athletics programs. I hope everyone who thinks college football is the most wonderful thing since bottled beer are happy. (I know: bottles aren’t allowed in stadiums. But you get the general idea).
On the other hand, one might applaud this as a manifestation of capitalism in action: Football is a revenue center. Computer science? Not so much. Finally those snotty, elite, Ivory Tower Theoreticians are waking up to the real world…
April 23rd, 2012 at 11:33
I choked a bit when I got to the point when the author says that the real culprit is the state legislature. There isn’t a state university in this country that couldn’t slash its overhead by 80% and run more efficiently than they do now. No matter how much money flows into a university – tuition, endowments, gifts, government support – they manage to spend every penny of it and only rarely make any improvement in the quality of education.
April 24th, 2012 at 04:34
“There isn’t a state university in this country that couldn’t slash its overhead by 80% and run more efficiently” Concur. And they can begin with the entire football program. After all, what does football really have to do with education?
On the other hand, it is a great marketing tool. Who would have ever known about an obscure liberal arts college in northern Indiana had it not been for Knute Rockne?