The game of life : college sports and educational values : with a new preface by the authors / James L. Shulman and William G. Bowen ; in collaboration with Lauren A. Meserve and Roger C. Schonfeld.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shulman, James Lawrence, 1965-

Contributor:

Bowen, William G.

Meserve, Lauren A.

Schonfeld, Roger C., 1977-

Series:

The William G. Bowen Series ; 62

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

College sports--United States.

College sports.

Education, Higher--Aims and objectives--United States.

Education, Higher.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (496 pages)

Edition:

With a New preface by the authors

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 2002, c2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The President of Williams College faces a firestorm for not allowing the women's lacrosse team to postpone exams to attend the playoffs. The University of Michigan loses $2.8 million on athletics despite averaging 110,000 fans at each home football game. Schools across the country struggle with the tradeoffs involved with recruiting athletes and updating facilities for dozens of varsity sports. Does increasing intensification of college sports support or detract from higher education's core mission? James Shulman and William Bowen introduce facts into a terrain overrun by emotions and enduring myths. Using the same database that informed The Shape of the River, the authors analyze data on 90,000 students who attended thirty selective colleges and universities in the 1950's, 1970's, and 1990's. Drawing also on historical research and new information on giving and spending, the authors demonstrate how athletics influence the class composition and campus ethos of selective schools, as well as the messages that these institutions send to prospective students, their parents, and society at large. Shulman and Bowen show that athletic programs raise even more difficult questions of educational policy for small private colleges and highly selective universities than they do for big-time scholarship-granting schools. They discover that today's athletes, more so than their predecessors, enter college less academically well-prepared and with different goals and values than their classmates--differences that lead to different lives. They reveal that gender equity efforts have wrought large, sometimes unanticipated changes. And they show that the alumni appetite for winning teams is not--as schools often assume--insatiable. If a culprit emerges, it is the unquestioned spread of a changed athletic culture through the emulation of highly publicized teams by low-profile sports, of men's programs by women's, and of athletic powerhouses by small colleges. Shulman and Bowen celebrate the benefits of collegiate sports, while identifying the subtle ways in which athletic intensification can pull even prestigious institutions from their missions. By examining how athletes and other graduates view The Game of Life--and how colleges shape society's view of what its rules should be--Bowen and Shulman go far beyond sports. They tell us about higher education today: the ways in which colleges set policies, reinforce or neglect their core mission, and send signals about what matters.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface to the Paperback Edition

Prelude: Four Snapshots

Preface

Chapter 1. The Institutionalization and Regulation of College Sports in Historical Perspective

Chapter 2. The Admissions Game: Recruiting Male Athletes and the Implications of Selection

Chapter 3. The College Game: Academic Outcomes for Men

Chapter 4. Men's Lives after College: Advanced Study, Jobs, Earnings

Chapter 5. The Development of Women's Athletic Programs

Chapter 6. New Players: The Recruitment and Admission of Women Athletes

Chapter 7. Women Athletes in College

Chapter 8. Women's Lives after College: Advanced Study, Family, Jobs, Earnings

Chapter 9. Leadership

Chapter 10. Giving Back

Chapter 11. The Financial Equation: Expenditures and Revenues

Chapter 12. Key Empirical Findings

Chapter 13. Taking Stock

Chapter 14. Thinking Ahead: Impediments to Change and Proposed Directions

Appendix A: Scorecards

Appendix B: Supplementary Data

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

"A Princeton University Press e-book."--Cover.

First paperback printing, with new preface, 2002.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [423]-430) and index.

ISBN:

9786613831675

9781283519229

1283519224

9781400840694

1400840694

OCLC:

746745525