Why are you all attacking each other?  Everyone here supports athletics, or we wouldn't be here.  Hays has some valid arguments, but I would agree with the OPINION that athletics is well worth the investment.  He disagrees.

Now, I would say the last 7 months has greatly reduced the validity of his argument.  Sweet 16s and signature football victories tend to do that . . .

I like Rich Vedder, he's a friend of mine.  But, Rich, you are no Frank Solich.

Doesn't matter. The university defines itself as liberal arts, every publication I've ever seen defines the university as liberal arts, and the curriculum of the university falls under the definition of liberal arts.

You can say you think the university is moving in a different direction, but you're wrong when you present it as fact when all the evidence is to the contrary.

More exposure, this time from Yahoo! Senior Writer Pat Forde in his weekly Dash. Coach earned his comp car!


http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--forde-yard-dash--empty-seats-fill-college-football-s-first-weekend.html

Click on Mission, Vision and Values and the right hand column supports Dragon's point:

http://www.ohio.edu/focus/

Well, in terms of the mission and vision statements as they are now written, JSF, you are very selective in your quotations and citations.  In fact, in the most recent iteration of these documents it does not actually say that Ohio is a "liberal arts university."  When discussing undergraduate programs they refer to having a "liberal arts" core.  I personally think that that is a good thing.  It does not make us a "liberal arts university."  In fact, if you look at the percentage of courses that the typical Ohio graduate takes outside his or her major in "the academy"  there has been a general decrease over the years. 

And the coup de grâce is that the ever-semi accurate wikipedia describes Ohio as a "prominent public research university." 

Not to be "that guy" but...it's Findlay University Sorry, I'm from Findlay, gotta give my hometown some representation!

Anyways, I can see both sides to this debate. I was a Music Production major at Ohio (through the school of Communications), and we fell into the "too many students with not enough staff" category. I had Eddie Ashworth (favorite prof!) for 5 classes within my major (out of about 8 REQUIRED classes), and some of the other "required courses" for Music Production were taught by video professors or general media professors (I.E. TCOM/MDIA 101, 203, 204, 205). I can most certainly understand the outcry against Hayes and his opinions...

...that being said, there's a reason OUr athletes are called STUDENT-Athletes...Academics ALWAYS comes first. I'm never in favor of cutting any kinds of programs, no matter how obscure, in this example, the CLWR department. This is a random connection here, but I took a few CLWR classes during my time at Ohio, and if it weren't for that department (and Lisa Battaglia, who is no longer at Ohio), I would not be a buddhist today. Regardless of perceived academic worth, those classes can and do open doors for students who are actually looking to take something out of it.

...and with THAT being said, Athletics are essentially free advertisement. When OUr programs are successful, it increases enrollment, which is NEVER a bad thing for Ohio, and it makes for more funding.

As I said, there are pros and cons to both sides of y'alls arguments, however I think it's a moot point to argue over.

So that's where my thread went.  Was just trying to poke fun at Miami like many other topics... and it was football related.  My bad...

HAHAHA I just realized that. Honestly, it must have been my subconscious hope that the University of Findlay would actually be "FU"...call it wishful thinking.

If I had Satruday off of work, I would be up in Athens this weekend for the game. I'm excited, and I'm hoping the football team can build on the recent success of Athletics.