MIND AND MATTER: University expansion should align with mission

It's hardly an understatement to say that football doesn't play as much of a role on this campus as it does on others. In fact, you might now be wondering why I would say something so obvious. 

Given our football program's recent success, the high hopes for this season and the rapidly changing landscape in intercollegiate athletics, there is a school of thought that Villanova, in order to maintain its basketball standing, ought to significantly upgrade its football program and move into the football bowl subdivision of the NCAA. 

Much of this talk is being preserved for time immemorial on the Internet and may even merit inclusion in the University's archives with minutes of the Board of Trustees deliberations. The parochial echo chamber otherwise known as VUSports.com has a following whose numbers are untold  — quite literally it doesn't reveal its number. Additionally, the denizens of this site have claimed they will pledge over $100,000 if Villanova announces a move in football. In other words, they'll finance one half of one scholarship athlete's time at Villanova.

On this site are those who claim that they are associated with Villanova administrators, trustees, coaches and athletes. This may all be true. Some of these good citizens claim that the University president is vehemently opposed to the idea of moving up in football because he wants to build a performing arts center. Some predict this facility will be built where Vasey Hall is currently or that it will be attached to Connelly Center, and that this will all be done by 2013. Never mind that the Campus Master Plan discusses neither that place, nor that time frame. 

Does Villanova need a performing arts center? Absolutely. Is that something that stands in the way of football? If multi-tasking stood in the way of doing things around here, one could reasonably infer that neither the new School of Law nor Driscoll Hall, would have been built. 

What Villanova does need to focus on is how it prioritizes things. Surely, athletics is an important element of this institution. For the President and the Board of Trustees, however, to decide to invest untold millions — untold precisely because there has been no publicly acknowledged figure of cost, only conjecture — in the upgrade of the football program at a time when the overall economy is unsteady, and there are other priorities that need to be addressed first would be a massive abandonment of their obligation to good stewardship of the institution and its resources. 

Some might argue that good athletics programs are good publicity. Agreed. What that statement fails to take into account is that while a good football team or a good basketball team might get someone to take notice of Villanova, it's not what ultimately clinches a student's decision to attend or most certainly to stay. It's hard to believe that Jay Wright or Andy Talley would find anything to dispute with regard to that. 

Short of a landmark gift that dwarfs the likes of anything Villanova has ever seen, one finds it unlikely that such a move would be prudent at this time. Football and even basketball are complements to the program here, in the same way that track and field, soccer, tennis and every other varsity sport are. They are additional ways to educate the students in the same way that musical theater and campus ministry programs are. 

When decisions about athletics are driving decisions about whether or not to build a performing arts center, it's difficult to see anything other than a failure to uphold the University's mission. 

Villanova is in the business of educating. So long as there are priorities which pertain to the University's academic mission that need to be addressed, the question of whether to upgrade the football program ought to be tabled, especially in light of the tremendously uncertain result that would await the program and the institution that supports it.

Bryan Kerns is a senior honors and humanities major from Drexel Hill, Pa. He can be reached at bryan.kerns@villanova.edu.