By Michael Kelley ’14

Photo by Steve Tringali ’13/ The Lafayette

Football scholarhips were endorsed in Februrary by the Patriot League Council of Presidents, a decision that will lead to more high-profile recruits joining the teams of Lafayette and Lehigh. There have been concerns among Lafayette faculty about how funds will be allocated and the switch to scholarships.

“The faculty seldom speak with one voice on any issue, and this one is no different,” Professor of Psychology Alan Childs said.

Childs speaks of football scholarships, which were endorsed by the Patriot League Council of Presidents earlier this spring.  President Daniel H. Weiss said he did not believe scholarships were “in the best interest in the long-term interest of the league,” when the decision was tabled in December 2010.

While faculty did not play a direct role in the decision, there were several forums in which they could voice their opinions, a perspective the administration was “always interested in hearing,” Professor of Geology Dru Germanowski said.

Of the professors who were willing to comment for this article, contention remained whether faculty really had any sway in the decision.

In the end, it was a decision for Weiss and the Board of Trustees to make, but Childs believes “it was as open a process as possible,” and that the faculty had a voice.

Professor of Economics Jerome Heavey believed the faculty had no voice in the matter.

The Patriot League was formed on the principle of a non-scholarship league, something Professor of Economics SusanAverett found, “really neat when I first came to Lafayette.” Averett is the football and softball team advisor as well as the faculty representative to the NCAA.

The league made a 180 degree shift when Holy Cross began basketball scholarships in 1999. Other league teams followed suit in the following years, but Lafayette resisted. “We toed the line when schools started giving [scholarships] out,” Averett said.

Eventually, the resistance gave out when Lafayette began basketball scholarships in 2006. Becoming a scholarship league was the big issue, according to Averett. Adding football scholarships was “just another tweak at the margin. It’s just a repackaging of the aid.”

Another primary concern for faculty members is the current problem of allocating funds.

“This is a prisoner’s dilemma, an arms race, in which schools as a group will continue to direct resources away from what they all claim is their primary mission,” Heavey said.

Professor Nicole Crain continued with the economics standpoint. “Cost/benefit analysis went into the decision and I am not inclined to second guess it,” Crain said. She was pleased that Lafayette will not take any additional academic money to fund the scholarships.

Childs believes that the majority of faculty are “sorry that this was the choice that the league and member institutions had to make, but now trust the administration to proceed in a manner that preserves the integrity of the total operating budget for the college.”

Averett described her position as a “little agnostic.”

Not all of the responses were negative. Professor Mary Jo Lodge in the English department  said that, “the faculty passed and supported this and I think athletic scholarships, just like arts scholarships or those in other disciplines, can attract students to Lafayette who will enrich the Lafayette experience.”

At the end of the day, however, the decision was inevitable. “President Weiss made it clear that if the league goes this way [to give scholarships], we would go that way too,” Averett said.

“The league has made a decision to do this, and we are members of the league. So we are complying with the league. I’m not talking about my personal opinion,” Weiss said following the announcement in February.

The effects of this decision will begin to be seen with the entrance of the Class of 2017, the first class that will receive football scholarships under Head Football Coach, Frank Tavani.