TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/042390/0423510.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 10.2 KB | 259 lines

                                                                                INTERVIEW, Page 11

Big Campus, Big Issues


DONNA SHALALA, first woman to head a Big Ten university,
tackles professional athletics, alcoholism, and the roles of
business and government at Wisconsin

By BONNIE ANGELO and Donna Shalala


    Q. Critics charge that amateur status in college athletics
is a joke, that student athletes are being used and not
educated. But so what? Serious students can get a good
education, and the sports teams give schools like yours more
prestige and more money.

    A. What's at stake is the integrity of the best universities
in the U.S. -- unless the leaders of higher education really
take hold and make certain that what we have is students first,
who come to our universities also to play athletics. People who
are competitive are always pushing against the edges. But the
situation is going to be reined in, because colleges understand
that their first responsibility is to these young people.


    Q. But how else can athletes from poor backgrounds break
into high-paying professional sports?

    A. There certainly are young athletes who have dreams. We
try to make the point that a very small percentage go on to pro
careers. But look what the pros are doing to us now: the
National Football League is pressuring, and probably will end
up drafting, players after their freshman or sophomore years.
The tragedy is that we've become minor-league training camps for
the pros, a place for young people to build up their strength
and experience, to get noticed, before they try to take a shot
at the pros.

    I understand the bottom line, but if I had an unrealistic
dream, it would be that professional teams announce that they
wouldn't talk to student athletes until they had a college
degree in hand. But they're not going to do that.


    Q. But isn't this the schools' fault?

    A. You can blame the universities for using these young
people, but in some ways they are using us. We feel that a
certain curriculum and a period of time are needed to be an
educated person, not simply coming in, using us for a couple of
years and taking off.


    Q. Suppose you really got tough and went back to bona fide
amateur athletics. If your teams were weakened and began to lose
more games, what would it do to contributions from alumni?

    A. If we all do it together, as the N.C.A.A., so it's an
even playing field, we'll do just fine. The issue is whether we
do it together or not. I think the game's up. We know that in
the next couple of years we're just going to have to do it.


    Q. What is the biggest problem on college campuses today?

    A. Alcoholism. Of course we have drug problems. We see
pushers on our campus and kids getting into trouble with drugs,
but it's nowhere near the range and depth that the alcohol
problem is.

    Our young people are out on the streets looking for parties,
a place to dance, looking for a scene. No institutions are
providing them with alternatives, fun things to do that don't
necessarily have alcohol at the center.


    Q. Why is alcohol a problem now?

    A. We changed the drinking age in this country, raised it
to 21. The universities participated in changing it, but no one
thought about what people under 21 are going to do. Much of
college life was built around the local tavern and fraternity
houses.

    The one thing that has changed is that young people are
starting to drink earlier. I never had a drink until I went to
college, and then we seriously drank beer. But these young
people are drinking in junior high school and high school. They
get to the university, and we're saying, Hey, you can't drink.
Some of it is unrealistic.


    Q. If this law isn't working, should the legal drinking age
go back to 18?

    A. Young people are paying almost no attention to the law.
They're still getting access to alcohol. But there's no question
that the law has made people more conscious of a designated
driver. It's cut down the number of deaths, so no educator I
know would advocate going back to an 18-year-old drinking age,
because no one wants to take the responsibility.

    And it's not just driving. Many of the racial incidents have
at their root people who have drunk too much. Date rape -- an
issue all of us are concerned about -- is often attached to some
kind of overdrinking. Alcohol exacerbates all the other kinds
of things.


    Q. We're hearing a lot about date rape. What are you doing
about it?

    A. The most effective weapon against date rape is education
of men about this issue. You need to open up lines of
communication and have sensitive counseling.

    If it occurs, you've got to be as tough as possible. In some
cases throw someone out of school, force him into some kind of
education program. But preventive measures are most important.
I don't know of a campus in this country that is not struggling
with this.


    Q. Is racism increasing on campuses, or is it just the
definition that's changing?

    A. At least the recognition of racism is increasing. I would
argue that we have a generation of young people, particularly
minorities, who are no longer putting up with the kinds of
things their parents put up with. They're much more
self-confident.

    It's no longer acceptable to make fun of people because of
race or sex. But it has always been present in American society.


    Q. How do you get this across to a student body that is
almost 95% white?

    A. From the moment they walk on campus as freshmen, we make
them very aware of racial and sexual insensitivities and what's
acceptable behavior.

    This is not just a moral argument but an educational
argument. You go to college not only for the latest knowledge
but also to meet people from different backgrounds. That's the
genius of the American higher-education system compared with the
Europeans'. We don't simply skim the elite.


    Q. How do you balance control of racist speech or actions
against freedom of expression? Can the Ku Klux Klan march on
your campus?

    A. Sure. And the Rev. [Louis] Farrakhan. You can't have a
university without having free speech, even though at times it
makes us terribly uncomfortable. If students are not going to
hear controversial ideas on college campuses, they're not going
to hear them in America. I believe it's part of their education.
It doesn't mean we don't denounce them and say that kind of
behavior is unacceptable.


    Q. You've got 44,000 students at Wisconsin and a
billion-dollar budget. Are universities getting too big, too
dehumanizing?

    A. There are advantages to big campuses -- choices, quality,
depth, brilliant teaching and research. A great research
university such as we have here in Madison must anticipate the
future, educate young people for a world we can't even begin to
describe.


    Q. American education in general is increasingly portrayed
as inadequate. Is the University of Wisconsin guilty?

    A. It is one of the handful of places in the world where new
knowledge is being created, from fundamental discoveries that
improve health to new poetry and literature. After all,
Wisconsin is not only the place where the first work on vitamin
D was done, but it is also where unemployment insurance was
developed. That's the creation of knowledge.


    Q. What grade would you give U.S. colleges?

    A. Higher education is one of few areas where this country
competes with the rest of the world and wins. The best of
American higher education outstrips any in the world. Look where
the rest of the world goes for higher education, for graduate
degrees. They come here.


    Q. Research carries a huge price tag. With the budget
squeezed at every level, how are you going to pay for it?

    A. The Federal Government has to recognize that its
investment in research and development in basic sciences is
going to have to expand for this country to be competitive.
That's a federal function, not a state function. If we ask
anything of our national Government, it's that it have a longer
view of the future, that it make sure that the infrastructure
-- which includes basic research -- is in place and very
dynamic.


    Q. You're talking about graduate work and advanced scholars.
What about the failure of American education at the
public-school level?

    A. Public high schools are turning out students who are
certainly not college ready, students who have limited writing,
reading and thinking skills. We're not going to survive as a
country unless public schools teach people to read and write.

    But it's not just public schools; it's poor families. In the
end, what will make this country lag behind is our inability to
deal with issues of poverty, with the problems of the poorest
children in our society.


    Q. Is there a ray of hope?

    A. Yes, because we have new constituencies that are
interested. First, there's clear recognition by the business
community that our survival as a nation, economically, depends
on what we do with public education. Second, there's a group of
younger Governors who are reforming their own education systems,
making a bigger investment, holding them accountable.

    It takes coalitions to improve the quality of education. It
cannot be done simply by a band of good educational leaders.


    Q. George Bush talks about being the education President.
Does his Administration share your view?

    A. Well, we're beating on him. It's not clear yet whether
the Administration is prepared to be bold, that it understands
the building blocks of American enterprise.


    Q. Before coming to Wisconsin and the Big Ten, when you were
president of New York City's Hunter College, you probably didn't
know a quarterback sneak from a pickpocket. Have you made the
transition?

    A. I actually had some people tutor me. But I still listen
to the opera while I'm watching the football games.

    The fun of education and of being an educational leader is
learning new subjects. I've never lost the excitement of
learning. If it's not fun, it's not worth doing. But every
commencement, I decide I'll try another year.