The Perversion of Scholarship

• College and university administrators defund libraries, close foreign language and classics departments and invest staggering sums in gargantuan sports arenas and athletic programs. And the only time the student body protests or riots is when, as at Penn State, something unpleasant happens to the beloved football coach.
• The real madness is 'one-and-done' title
• Universities Gone Wild: Big Money, Big Sports and Scandalous Abuse

Chris Hedges, Truthdig

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Illustration by Mr. Fish

(July 30, 2012) Fraternities, sororities and football, along with other outsized athletic programs, have decimated most major American universities. Scholarship, inquiry, self-criticism, moral autonomy and a search for artistic and esoteric forms of expression—in short, the world of ethics, creativity and ideas—are shouted down by the drunken chants of fans in huge stadiums, the pathetic demands of rich alumni for national championships, and the elitism, racism and rigid definition of gender roles of Greek organizations. These hypermasculine systems perpetuate a culture of conformity and intolerance.  They have inverted the traditional values of scholarship to turn four years of college into a mindless quest for collective euphoria and athletic dominance.

There is probably no more inhospitable place to be an intellectual, or a person of color or a member of the LGBT community, than on the campuses of the Big Ten Conference colleges, although the poison of this bizarre American obsession has infected innumerable schools. These environments are distinctly corporate. To get ahead one must get along. The student is implicitly told his or her self-worth and fulfillment are found in crowds, in mass emotions, rather than individual transcendence. Those who do not pay deference to the celebration of force, wealth and power become freaks. It is a war on knowledge in the name of knowledge.

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Related:

The real madness is 'one-and-done' title, Minneapolis (MN) Star-Tribune

• Kentucky's NCAA win spotlights hypocrisy in college sports.
• Universities Gone Wild: Big Money, Big Sports and Scandalous Abuse

Universities Gone Wild: Big Money, Big Sports and Scandalous Abuse at Penn State, Henry A. Giroux and Susan Searls Giroux, Truthout

• If university administrators cannot defend the university as a public good, but instead, as in the case of Penn State, align themselves with big money, big sports and the instrumental values of finance capital, they will not be able to mobilize the support of the broader public and will have no way to defend themselves against the neoliberal and conservative attempts by state governments to continually defund higher education.
• Special Report | The Shame of College Sports: December 18, 2011