(07-18-2018 08:25 PM)Wolfman Wrote:  If a school were to drop all intramural sports would they still be able to fulfill their mission? I can’t think of a case where they wouldn’t.

Chemistry to athletics isn’t an apples to apples comparison. You would have to compare something like an engineering department to athletics. If a school were to drop engineering would they be able to to fulfill their mission? The answer is no. Although the mission would probably be rewritten to omit engineering.

I do think spinning football off is a good idea. It isolates the university from a lot of negatives and solves a lot of title IX issues.

To clarify, I am not talking about the actual written mission of a given school. A school can write anything in to or out of its official mission statement. The issue is what *should* be in a school's mission statement. Historically, in academia, what has been regarded as valid is - obviously - a focus on academics, with also some acknowledgment of developing one's body, and also, as many universities originally had a religious aspect, spiritual development as well. Obviously in today's secular environment, that aspect is optional.

To your point, I agree that a school could drop intramurals and still fulfill a valid mission, as a valid mission focuses mainly on academics, and the 'body' aspect is of lesser import. But, to me, it still has its role, so dropping intramurals would be a bad thing. Intercollegiate athletics is a completely different animal, it has no valid role in the mission at all.

As for chemistry vs engineering, I teach in a college of business, which like engineering, is a professional school. There definitely are scholars who think that professional areas like business and engineering are also tangential to the true mission of a university, they define it strictly in terms of Arts and Sciences.

It's a point I take, so to me, a school could shed itself of those kinds of areas and that wouldn't violate a true mission. A "liberal arts" curriculum meets that standard.

This is often reflected in tenure policies. E.g., at many Louisiana state universities, if you are a tenured English professor, your tenure is "with the university", you can't get laid off unless the whole university shuts down, they could close the English department but still have to employ you as an English professor. Whereas if you are a tenured Engineering professor, your tenure is with that college specifically - you have a job only so long as the engineering department exists, if it goes, you go.

Still, though tangential, they also study 'basic' problems of knowledge, they aren't just aimed at purely practical/professional issues, so one can also make a case for them to be a part of a university.

But even if you think that business and engineering are as out-of-bounds to a legitimate university mission as intercollegiate athletics, you'd probably have to admit that it would be absurd if all students, even those with zero interest in business and engineering, were assessed a mandatory "business and engineering fee" to keep those domains afloat and subsidize them. That would be ridonculous. In fact, at most schools it works the other way - business and engineering are 'tolerated' because they directly subsidize the university core by generating tuition income that is partially shared with the central administration. They subsidize the 'pure' academic side, not vice-versa.