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Title: Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Is Crippling Undergraduate Education by Murray Sperber ISBN: 0-8050-6811-2 Publisher: Owl Books (NY) Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.57 (28 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Eye Opening
Comment: As an Englishman living in the United States, I can never get enthusiastic about college sports. I have no alleigance to a US college, so why bother? This book is an eye opener and no mistake. The author says, if your are not in the "Honors Program", then by and large you are going to receive a pretty mediocre undergraduate education if your University is a big time NCAA school. Students don't get a good education, but the university needs their tuition dollars, so it distracts them with the "Beer and Circus" mentality of big time sports. Not only is this a shame, it is a disgrace. He backs up his arguments too with many quotes and references. I was particularly interested in the role he gives to ESPN in this.
Rating: 4
Summary: Swings wildly, but lands a few near-knockout blows
Comment: Sperber does a good job of documenting the general decline in the quality of undergraduate education in the United States. The book overstates and is a bit untempered, but the overall description of contemporary college life - students ignored by faculty and drinking away their four years - isn't that far off the mark. Don't let the subtitle fool you. Beer and Circus is about far more than the degradation of universities due to their emphasis on scholarship athletics. The abandonment of undergraduates is due to many other causes that Sperber discusses as well. Sperber is very sympathetic to the plight of the student trying to get a good education. His heart is in the right place. Beer and Circus won't delight college presidents, but could well serve as a call to arms by those consumers, the parents and students, who are paying large sums of money for education and are getting short changed.
Rating: 4
Summary: Undergraduate Education Comes Up Way Short Next to Sports
Comment: 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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Title: The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values by James L. Shulman, William G. Bowen ISBN: 0691096198 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Intercollegiate Athletics and the American University : A University President's Perspective by James J. Duderstadt ISBN: 0472089439 Publisher: UMP Pub. Date: 05 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism and Conflict in Big-Time College Sports by Andrew Zimbalist ISBN: 0691086907 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
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Title: The Hundred Yard Lie: The Corruption of College Football and What We Can Do to Stop It by Rick Telander ISBN: 0252065239 Publisher: University of Illinois Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics by John R. Thelin ISBN: 0801855047 Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1996 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
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