In the past, many faculty members remained in the dark about the workings of the athletics department, from issues such as department policies for overseeing athletes’ academic performances to how coaches made practice and travel plans.  The overall goal is in the words of new Athletic Council chair Michael Gillespie “to build bridges across Towerview.”

Based on its recommendations and those of outgoing Faculty Athletic Representative (FAR) Kathleen Smith, Brodhead revised the Athletic Council, the responsibilities of the FAR and wrote a new mission statement for athletics.  Both academic and athletic officials are hopeful that the changes will lead to a freer flow of information, a more regular reporting system and a better understanding in athletics and academics of the needs and wishes of the other. 

“There was always good work done on the Athletic Council, but there was a perception, especially by the members of the Athletic Council that it was something of a black hole in that nobody knew when, how or if any input went into that group and no one knew when, how or if any output came out of that group,” Brodhead said.  “We wanted to devise an Athletics Council that was more open to the rest of the university, took charges from relevant administrators, include a wider faculty presence and at the end of the year reported out about its work.”

Responsibility for implementing these changes falls to Psychology Professor Martha Putallaz, the new faculty athletics representative, and Political Science Professor Michael Gillespie, the new Athletic Council chair.  One of the key changes is splitting those two posts, which previously were held by Smith.

The FAR’s previous dual responsibility proved problematic in important situations, Putallaz said, because the FAR is the president’s appointee and reports directly to President Brodhead.  Under the old system, no one was charged with reporting about athletics to the faculty, Putallaz said.

“The recommendation to split the roles means there will be a lot more reporting to faculty and others,” she said.  “I remember talking with Joe Alleva, and he couldn’t understand why so many people in academics didn’t understand what athletics did because they were always forthcoming in the Athletic Council meeting.  But that information never went anywhere.  Now we have the job responsibilities in place to ensure that information does get shared.”

Putallaz will be Duke’s representative to the NCAA, ACC and other athletic meetings and will regularly report to Brodhead about athletics issues. 

Gillespie is currently recruiting additional membership for the Athletic Council, which is beefing up the number of faculty committee members. He is also arranging monthly lunchtime faculty meetings with coaches in the Faculty Commons.

“The idea behind bringing in more faculty members and having these Faculty Commons meetings is simply we want more faculty members who are knowledgeable about what’s going on in athletics,” Gillespie said.  “Faculty members can talk with coaches about what goes on in their sports, and how coaches run their teams and what they see as the tensions and problems.”

Nearly a tenth of all undergraduate students participate in varsity sports, Gillespie and Putallaz said. Both said what got lost in the lacrosse crisis is in terms of combining excellence in academics and athletics, few universities can compare with Duke’s record.  Athletics’ success, for one, means that Duke spends less on subsidies for athletics than do the Ivies or even many Division III colleges such as Williams and Amherst, Gillespie said.

“The more people can find out about athletics the better,” Gillespie said.  “By national standards, there may be some program out there that is better than us, but I can’t think of it.  Stanford, Notre Dame, Northwestern -- I’m confident we’re doing a better job than they are in terms of academic performance and athletic success.”

Putallaz said there is also the important reality that athletic success has become an important part of Duke’s identity that is attractive to top students.

“To excel in a way that we define excellence in both athletics and academics, that’s a very unique niche,” she said.  “It’s an interesting group of students we attract.  David Kraines in mathematics is very interested in helping to promote the admission of math prodigies to Duke.  He said many of the ones who have come to Duke were attracted in part by the prominence of our athletic teams.  While a strong academic program was a requirement for them, they also were drawn by the excitement surrounding sports events that is not found at MIT or the Ivies. Cameron is a very different environment than they had experienced before.  Some of my colleagues may not see athletics as a community to support, but that is certainly one niche that is a community builder here.”