By Justin Muszynski
During the last Faculty Senate meeting, a motion was passed that mandates the Athletic Department to disclose their financial report to several administrative and faculty committees.
Guy Crundwell, of the University Planning and Budget Committee, who initiated the motion that called for “transparency” in the athletic department, gave a presentation at a UPBC meeting last semester in which he asked three questions: Is there balance — spending on academics compared to spending on athletics? Is the athletic program sustainable? Where does the money to support athletics originate?
“Coming across that Knight Commission report, it shocked me,” said Crundwell, who is also a professor of chemistry.
The report he is referring to found that at many bowl championship series schools, spending per athlete is rising much faster than spending on education-related activities per student.
The report that Crundwell referred to was in regards to Bowl Championship Series schools however, CCSU is a Football Championship Series school.
Paul Schlickmann, the director of athletics, says this is like “comparing apples to oranges.”
But Crundwell insists that CCSU is very similar to BCS schools.
“We fit the same profile,” said Crundwell. “We kind of follow what the smaller schools and the BCS ones are doing.”
He also explains why he decided this was something CCSU should look into.
“It was never a desire to say, ‘Athletics shouldn’t get the money and Academics should,’” said Crundwell. “We do a lot of assessments in the UPBC, we have all this data in academic departments of cost per student that’s available. When I read the Night Commission Report I thought that a (Full-Time Equivalent) student is a great metric.”
However, the motion submitted that would call for the athletic department to break their numbers down into this category was shot down by the UPBC.
Schlickmann says should the Athletic Department be asked to put their numbers together showing how much is spent on each FTE student they will be glad to do so.
“We will work collaboratively to figure out what the best way to put the information together is so we can discuss it,” said Schlickmann.
At the last Faculty-Senate meeting it was decided that Schlickmann, Crundwell and another member of the UPBC would return to discuss this matter further and figure out what’s the next step in this process should there be one.
In Crundwell’s presentation, he indicates that preliminary data acquired from USA Today and Institutional Planning, shows a “ballpark” estimate of athletic spending per athlete suggests it is growing faster than spending per academic students. He feels should this data be confirmed, that it is “problematic.”
Crundwell is very adamant that this is not an attempt to move CCSU from a Division one school to Division two. He says that wouldn’t solve anything because the report he read shows division two schools are facing the same challenges that division one schools are.
Instead he says this may be an opportunity to look into alternative ways to increasing the revenue that’s created by the athletics department.
Schlickmann however, says his department is always doing what they can to generate more revenue.
“We make it one of our core operating principles to operate with fiscal integrity and to maximize our resources and to maximize our revenue generation,” said Schlickmann. “We’re already doing that, we’re doing everything we can in multiple ways.”
He also says should the university decide to spend less on athletics they will deal with it in every way they can.
“Whatever we’re fortunate to receive from the university as a budget allocation, we take that and if we have to endure a cut like other entities on campus then we endure a cut,” said Schlickmann.
Crundwell explains that he has nothing against sports on the collegiate level, but when he finds trends that are happening to colleges around the country he likes to investigate further to find out whether or not it is occurring at CCSU.
Schlickmann understands that sports always has a tendency to stick out and doesn’t feel that the athletics department is being singled out by being the only ones who have to now submit their financial data through several committees.