The Hutchins Committee is an independent group
within NAFCAR working solely and specifically for the abolition of "athletic
scholarships" at American colleges and
universities.  The committee is named in honor of Robert Maynard Hutchins,
the great University of Chicago president who, having seen clairvoyantly
that big-time college athletics would lead to the destruction of academic
and intellectual community at American universities, in 1939 permanently
withdrew Chicago from the Big 10 conference and "professionalized"
intercollegiate athletics.The subsequent rise of Chicago as a great university has been, in the view of the Hutchins Committee, very largely due to the courage and prescience displayed by President Hutchins at a crucial moment in the university's history. Today, as the chasm between "real" universities and "sports factories" grows ever wider, it seems to us that some institutions may yet be saved by making Hutchins' choice. The Hutchins Committee will work specifically through Faculty Senates at institutions where faculty still see a possibility of redemption from the TV-revenue-driven behemoth of professionalized college athletics. Faculty at such institutions may contact the Committee by sending an e-mail to NHC (NAFCAR, Hutchins Committee). Please include department and campus address. |