Financially strapped Fisk University ends NCAA athletics
Black College Wire
By Shauntel Lowe
Issue date: 3/5/08 Section: News
Clad in his Greek letters, Fisk University senior David Hill would make his way to the annual homecoming basketball game, on the lookout for his fraternity brothers, old and young, of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. They might embrace or just say hello, the older Omegas doling out pieces of wisdom to the younger frats. But not anymore.
"Usually everyone has a homecoming football game. We just have a basketball game. And now, we're not even going to have that," Hill said.
Amid a deepening financial crisis, Fisk administrators recently announced that they were ending all of the university's NCAA athletic programs after this year and will develop a system of intramural sports in their place.
According to a statement by Provost Kofi Lomotey, released Feb. 25, the Nashville university views the move as an opportunity to involve more students in sports.
But many current students, alumni and faculty see the loss of the sports program as potentially devastating to student life on campus.
"It decreases the camaraderie between students now that you don't have a function or an event where students get together. It decreases school pride. What are you rooting for, other than your academics?" said Hill, who is majoring in physics with plans for a career in astronomy.
The move is just the latest strategic shift for the university, which has been struggling to gain traction in its race to raise funds before it runs out of money.
Financial struggle is nothing new or uncommon at Fisk, known for the historic fundraising efforts of its student chorus, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, who traveled throughout the United States and Europe in the early 1870s to raise money for the school. The group is honored with Jubilee Hall on the Fisk campus.
But this period of struggle for the university has attracted nationwide attention as Fisk has battled in court over the right to sell, or at this point simply keep, the 101-piece Stieglitz collection of modern art given to the university in the 1949 by renowned artist Georgia O'Keeffe, wife of photographer Alfred Stieglitz.
"Usually everyone has a homecoming football game. We just have a basketball game. And now, we're not even going to have that," Hill said.
Amid a deepening financial crisis, Fisk administrators recently announced that they were ending all of the university's NCAA athletic programs after this year and will develop a system of intramural sports in their place.
According to a statement by Provost Kofi Lomotey, released Feb. 25, the Nashville university views the move as an opportunity to involve more students in sports.
But many current students, alumni and faculty see the loss of the sports program as potentially devastating to student life on campus.
"It decreases the camaraderie between students now that you don't have a function or an event where students get together. It decreases school pride. What are you rooting for, other than your academics?" said Hill, who is majoring in physics with plans for a career in astronomy.
The move is just the latest strategic shift for the university, which has been struggling to gain traction in its race to raise funds before it runs out of money.
Financial struggle is nothing new or uncommon at Fisk, known for the historic fundraising efforts of its student chorus, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, who traveled throughout the United States and Europe in the early 1870s to raise money for the school. The group is honored with Jubilee Hall on the Fisk campus.
But this period of struggle for the university has attracted nationwide attention as Fisk has battled in court over the right to sell, or at this point simply keep, the 101-piece Stieglitz collection of modern art given to the university in the 1949 by renowned artist Georgia O'Keeffe, wife of photographer Alfred Stieglitz.
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