The executive committee was concerned that only three of the nine elected members of the athletics committee are from the undergraduate College of Arts and Sciences, where an overwhelming majority of athletes are enrolled.
Beverly Foster, an athletics committee member and nursing professor, said the concerns make her angry and feel like she is wasting her time. She said more than 30 years of experience in undergraduate education and service on past committees make her valuable to the committee.
“The College (of Arts and Sciences) minding its own penthouse is not the safest approach,” she said. “I think it needs people from inside and outside and people with critical thought.”
Andrew Perrin, a committee member and sociology professor, said he finds irony in the fact that everyone implicated in the Wainstein report is from the College and yet the College wants a larger oversight role.
“I think they’ve mistaken the character of representation to suggest that the reason why we serve adequately is because only of our classroom experiences,” Perrin said.
Perrin said he would be fine with a threshold of members from the College and that he thinks the committee needs more resources and should assume an oversight role as opposed to an advisory charge.
The committee reached a general consensus that they wanted the direction of their charge to move towards an oversight role.
Members of the executive committee specifically expressed concern with the presence of Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham and Michelle Brown, director of the Academic Support Program for Student-Athletes, on the committee because of Cunningham’s and Brown’s close involvement with athletes.
