TO THE EDITOR:
This letter responds to Lewis Margolis and the letter published on Nov. 15.
I certainly can respect and agree with the desire to reconcile the athletic and academic mission of the university. Without question, the purpose of athletics at any university — including our own — is to enrich and embolden the university experience for both students and staff alike. With this as your conclusion, Dr. Margolis, I can
find no qualm in making that assertion.
However, the alacrity displayed in your blatant attack on competing for national championships in football while maintaining academic integrity is both ridiculous and misinformed.
Keeping the academic mission of the University of North Carolina is your job, Dr. Margolis, as a member of the teaching faculty at one of the best universities in the world. Promoting academic endeavors, be they research, teaching or service, are all important jobs of each and every professor at Carolina, including yourself.
Mr. Cunningham has earned a position where his goal is to combine that academic mission with the athletic endeavors of each student-athlete at UNC, whether that person competes in Kenan Stadium, Henry Stadium, the Dean E. Smith Center or Fetzer Field. He should seek to emulate and continue the great work that his predecessors, Dick Baddour and John Swofford, achieved for our great university, including an aggressive and re-invigorated focus on molding a football program worthy of both national championships and representing the greatest public university in the country.
I sincerely hope that the next time you feel compelled to tell Mr. Cunningham how to do his job, you remember an important fact — he will never pompously preach to you on how to accomplish your own professional goals.
Bradley D. Miller
Class of 2008
