Jay Smith is the co-author of Cheated: The UNC Scandal, the Education of Athletes, and the Future of Big-Time College Sports. In this presentation, Professor Smith will first survey some of the institutional damage inflicted on UNC-Chapel Hill by its 20-year athletic-academic scandal (and the 7-year mishandling of the scandal that followed its initial exposure in 2010). Next, he will consider some of the ways in which universities have allowed the defense of their sports “brand” to interfere directly with their academic missions. Why do institutions of higher learning sponsor commercialized sports? How do the values and imperatives of commerce, and of sporting competition, challenge the values and imperatives that drive academic performance? Is there any realistic way of balancing the forces that lead toward academic and athletic “excellence”? Professor Smith will offer perspective.
