Paralleling and in conformity with "dead week" (i.e. last class week of a term) legislation governing the academic faculty, which prohibits instructors from encumbering students with new assignments at a time when they are completing coursework and preparing for final exams, both intercollegiate athletics and club sports, for the same reasons as stated above, shall not participate in games and other competitive athletic events during the last class week of each term and the final exam week of each term. As a compromise I would be willing to modify, reluctantly, the above as follows, by appending to the end:

without the prior approval of a majority of the Intercollegiate athletics Committee and the President of the University of Oregon Senate.

(Ideally I would like to make this retroactive to include the Civil War game for Dec. 2001, but that is probably unrealistic at this point. If we could get one or the other passed I would consider that itself a victory and it will serve to send the right message about the importance of putting education first, which is my main concern, whatever the financial implications may be). I would hope, however, that this resolution, if passed, would apply with regard to the post-season basketball play in March 2002, or at the very least, that it will not allow it to continue beyond that date if post-season play falls at the end of each Winter term, which is the most likely scenario.)

On the 2Million Dollar subsidy

If the Administration continues to support subsidizing athletics (which even with Autzen completed we would not get the full subsidy back immediately, and probably never because of: inflation in operations, escalating salaries, building cost over-runs, worsening economy, etc.) can we propose one of the following strategies?:
 

Set a specific time for ending the subsidy, in one or two years, or when the Autzen expansion is completed. This would give the Athletic Department some time to refigure its budget and/or finding strategies to make up the lost $2M. This would at least send a message, even if not changing or reforming athletics.

Require that certain percentage of donations to athletics be devoted to academics. Donors will simply have to accept that; it would help to reconnect things, to recollegize athletics in the mind of donors.

Despite current efforts and the forthcoming Senate meeting, I suspect that not much will change with regard to support for athletics from the part of the Administration: its will will done as it always is, now and forever (however, I don't add "amen" to that). So what can we realistically do to assert some faculty control and oversight of athletics and an unresponsive administration? What if the Administration does not rescind its $2Million allocation to sports?

If your department has ever had its decennial review with both inside and outside examiners, you are aware that at the end of the process the review committee's recommendations are taken by the Provost, Dean and Departmental head (or some such combination) and are worked into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which outlines the goals and changes for the reviewed department (all this great stuff is to happen in a budget-neutral situation, naturally and unrealistically). Can't the Senate, Administration and Athletics negotiate some sort of MOU, a list of principles governing athletic operations in exchange for continuing to have and even to fund athletics? In exchange for the Administration's support of athletics (which could be continuing the subsidy), it would have to act in a manner that protects in concrete, measurable and visible ways the authenticity of the educational system against athletics' tendency to ignore it.

The MOU could contain these points:

1. No participation in games and athletic competitions/events during the last week of a term and during finals week of each term.
2. Maintain only the minimum number of sports and program required for division I and Pac-10 status; no enlargement beyond this minimum. No move to some other division or status which would require increasing funding.
3. Serious engagement of the IAC by the Athletic Dept and the Administration on matters relating to its charges.
4. Review of the athletic budget in order to monitor and stem growth and expansion contrary to the minimum needs of Division I.
5. Intercollegiate athletics, the Administration and the IAC, begin working locally, regionally and nationally to reform athletics with the following two goals: increase student study time and performance; 2) reduce costs of athletics. A plan of how to proceed should be developed with the IAC and others, as well as a strategy of how to get others involved in the process. Each year this plan will be reviewed to determine progress in this area. No honest efforts on reformation will be grounds, as non compliance on the other points above, for the termination of Division I sports at UO. There should be consequences for not following the MOU.
6. At the end of the year the IAC will report on the MOU and propose to the Senate changes in the status of athletics if the principles and recommendations in the MOU are not upheld. If academics is still subsiding athletics, the subsidy will be rescinded or reduced.

anything else, other ideas, other than cutting athletics, which probably will not happen;so what can we do realistically (if slowly) to return academics and athletics to a proper balance?