Faculty Senate members voted Monday to create an ad hoc external review committee of the Athletic Board to investigate allegations including harassment, mistreatment and intimidation of faculty members, as well as concerns of transparency and miscommunication.
This is not the first time the Athletic Board has come under review, according to professor Bruce Jones, Senate member and primary sponsor of the document calling for the creation of the committee formally known as The Jones Motion.
Several similar committees were created to investigate the Athletic Board in the last 16 years after the board decided to drop five sports during the 1991-92 academic year and again in 1997 to investigate debate over the non-retention of the head soccer coach, Jones said.
According to Senate member and UW history professor David McDonald, the current situation regarding the Athletic Board is markedly different from these previous years in there are no concrete allegations being raised.
“I fail to see beyond the usual metaphors about growth of the dark forces and Mordor on our western borders. I don’t hear any concrete allegations about the performance of the department,” McDonald said.
Senate member and political science professor Howard Schweber said such concrete allegations are not needed to recognize the Athletic Board’s role within the university has drastically changed in the last few years.
“The Athletic Board mediates between the university and the Athletic Department, and as long as I have been here, the size, wealth, power and influence of the Athletic Department has grown tremendously,” Schweber said.
He went on to add he has wanted to conduct such external reviews of the Athletic Board for the last few years because it is so large and has developed an ever larger “center of gravity” in so many different ways.
Athletic Board member Adam Gamoran recognized the Athletic Board has exhibited uncommon success in recent years but does not see this as grounds for the creation of an external review committee.
“I certainly have no trepidation about the creation of such a committee,” Gamoran said. “However, it does seem to me that the most articulate statement in support of the ad hoc committee says the Athletic Department has been way too successful. We better investigate it.”
Because of the lack of concrete allegations available and due to the confidential nature of the grievances, both McDonald and Gamoran, who opposed the motion, pushed for the institution of regular internal reviews in place of the external review committee.
Former Athletic Board member Jeremi Suri, who sent a letter to the chancellor last year containing several of the allegations, said dealing with the matter internally is not an option.
“When you have serious allegations about a body, you do not let that body alone review itself. That would not stand in any of our departments — it should not stand for a legitimate program of any kind. This is really not about athletics, this is about fairness, it is about the integrity of our institution,” Suri said.
Chancellor Biddy Martin agreed, adding she did not think the faculty alone has the expertise to do the type of sound study of the Athletic Board she would be willing to act on.
The Athletic Board completed its own self-study earlier this spring.
