EDUCATION | Rachel Wells
As the University of Illinois Springfield in October 2008 made another move toward full membership in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, then-Chancellor Richard Ringeisen said the eventual achievement could only mean good things for the school’s future.
He said he was excited because joining the Great Lakes Valley Conference, an academically high-achieving NCAA Division II organiation, meant competing against highly respected, better-known schools. “They’re all the kind of universities we don’t mind seeing our name in the paper with,” Ringeisen said during the press conference.
To be sure, since that day, the newspapers have more than once mentioned UIS’ athletics department in the same breath as a number of fine institutions with which it’s competed. But the papers also continue to feature UIS athletics in a negative light, time and time again, as the school struggles through scandals that just won’t die.
The most publicized scandal has been the alleged sexual assault of softball players by one of their coaches while in Florida for a spring break tournament in 2009. The following fall, headlines turned heads as the papers detailed the arrest of three soccer players in connection to an alleged hate crime. Beyond those highly visible incidents, UIS’ athletics program also has been plagued by low fan turnout, a budget that lacks stability and an internal struggle on the part of faculty for more information, involvement and control than administrators have allowed. While university administrators and athletic department leaders say the problems are merely growing pains, others say they’re more like shin splints, the pain of which is eased only by encouraging discussion beyond the immediate borders of the athletics program.
With the spring break incident serving as a tipping point, faculty sought to meet that end by creating an investigative committee. Headed by Dr. Barbara Hayler, professor emeritus, the committee at the beginning of this year issued a report with 31 different recommendations that centered on academic integrity and quality, student-athlete welfare, campus governance of athletics and fiscal responsibility. Many of the recommendations were repeats from two earlier reports, one developed in 2008 as UIS prepared to enter NCAA and one created in 2004 by a task force formed in response to, among other things, a star basketball player’s drug arrest.
While Hayler still is not satisfied with the university’s progress, others say they are pleased with what the university has accomplished so far and are optimistic work toward improving UIS’ athletics program will continue.
Faculty v. Ringeisen For years, faculty, through the campus senate’s Intercollegiate Athletics Committee, sought more involvement with and information about the continued development of the athletic department. Despite a request by the 2004 IAC task force for more direct interaction with Ringeisen, the now-retired chancellor never once met with the committee over the course of about five years, according to 2009 campus senate documents calling for the latest investigation.
“At the time, there was a sense that the athletics program was beset with so many problems,” says Dr. Tih-Fen Ting, professor of environmental science and the current chair of the campus senate. “There was a sense that those reports were not being closely followed up, or there was no sense of where we were.”
After Ringeisen made his first official announcement in 2007 regarding the school’s now-completed quest for NCAA Division II membership, both faculty and students officially expressed support – the move was expected to improve campus life, a continuing struggle for the university that not long ago served only upperclassmen. Still, some professors felt they had little say in the matter.
“We did make a recommendation that there were a lot of potential benefits for the university to make this move,” says Dr. Ryan Williams, a criminal justice professor and former chair of the faculty-led Intercollegiate Athletics Committee, the advisory group that ordered the investigative report of UIS athletics after the spring break incident. But he adds: “In a sense, the decision had already been made to move to the NCAA. It was a done deal.”
Hayler echoes Williams’ sentiments. She says there hasn’t been much faculty input or opportunity for faculty members to offer advice since the administration decided to enter the NCAA. “It’s been that way since 2007 when the chancellor held a press conference and announced we were going to apply for membership in the NCAA without having ever talked to the campus senate or any of the governance bodies on campus. … That just kind of set the tone for what’s been going on the last three or four years.”