Big Campus, Big Issues

By BONNIE ANGELO Donna Shalala

Q. Critics charge that amateur status in college athletics is a joke, that student athletes are being used and not educated. But so what? Serious students can get a good education, and the sports teams give schools like yours more prestige and more money.

A. What's at stake is the integrity of the best universities in the U.S. -- unless the leaders of higher education really take hold and make certain that what we have is students first, who come to our universities also to play athletics. People who are competitive are always pushing against the edges. But the situation is going to be reined in, because colleges understand that their first responsibility is to these young people.

Q. But how else can athletes from poor backgrounds break into high-paying professional sports?

A. There certainly are young athletes who have dreams. We try to make the point that a very small percentage go on to pro careers. But look what the pros are doing to us now: the National Football League is pressuring, and probably will end up drafting, players after their freshman or sophomore years. The tragedy is that we've become minor-league training camps for the pros, a place for young people to build up their strength and experience, to get noticed, before they try to take a shot at the pros.

I understand the bottom line, but if I had an unrealistic dream, it would be that professional teams announce that they wouldn't talk to student athletes until they had a college degree in hand. But they're not going to do that.

Q. But isn't this the schools' fault?

A. You can blame the universities for using these young people, but in some ways they are using us. We feel that a certain curriculum and a period of time are needed to be an educated person, not simply coming in, using us for a couple of years and taking off.

Q. Suppose you really got tough and went back to bona fide amateur athletics. If your teams were weakened and began to lose more games, what would it do to contributions from alumni?

A. If we all do it together, as the N.C.A.A., so it's an even playing field, we'll do just fine. The issue is whether we do it together or not. I think the game's up. We know that in the next couple of years we're just going to have to do it.

Q. What is the biggest problem on college campuses today?

A. Alcoholism. Of course we have drug problems. We see pushers on our campus and kids getting into trouble with drugs, but it's nowhere near the range and depth that the alcohol problem is.

Our young people are out on the streets looking for parties, a place to dance, looking for a scene. No institutions are providing them with alternatives, fun things to do that don't necessarily have alcohol at the center.

Q. Why is alcohol a problem now?

A. We changed the drinking age in this country, raised it to 21. The universities participated in changing it, but no one thought about what people under 21 are going to do. Much of college life was built around the local tavern and fraternity houses.

The one thing that has changed is that young people are starting to drink earlier. I never had a drink until I went to college, and then we seriously drank beer. But these young people are drinking in junior high school and high school. They get to the university, and we're saying, Hey, you can't drink. Some of it is unrealistic.

Q. If this law isn't working, should the legal drinking age go back to 18?

A. Young people are paying almost no attention to the law. They're still getting access to alcohol. But there's no question that the law has made people more conscious of a designated driver. It's cut down the number of deaths, so no educator I know would advocate going back to an 18-year-old drinking age, because no one wants to take the responsibility.

And it's not just driving. Many of the racial incidents have at their root people who have drunk too much. Date rape -- an issue all of us are concerned about -- is often attached to some kind of overdrinking. Alcohol exacerbates all the other kinds of things.

Q. We're hearing a lot about date rape. What are you doing about it?

A. The most effective weapon against date rape is education of men about this issue. You need to open up lines of communication and have sensitive counseling.

If it occurs, you've got to be as tough as possible. In some cases throw someone out of school, force him into some kind of education program. But preventive measures are most important. I don't know of a campus in this country that is not struggling with this.

Q. Is racism increasing on campuses, or is it just the definition that's changing?

A. At least the recognition of racism is increasing. I would argue that we have a generation of young people, particularly minorities, who are no longer putting up with the kinds of things their parents put up with. They're much more self-confident.

It's no longer acceptable to make fun of people because of race or sex. But it has always been present in American society.

Q. How do you get this across to a student body that is almost 95% white?

A. From the moment they walk on campus as freshmen, we make them very aware of racial and sexual insensitivities and what's acceptable behavior.

This is not just a moral argument but an educational argument. You go to college not only for the latest knowledge but also to meet people from different backgrounds. That's the genius of the American higher-education system compared with the Europeans'. We don't simply skim the elite.

Q. How do you balance control of racist speech or actions against freedom of expression? Can the Ku Klux Klan march on your campus?

A. Sure. And the Rev. ((Louis)) Farrakhan. You can't have a university without having free speech, even though at times it makes us terribly uncomfortable. If students are not going to hear controversial ideas on college campuses, they're not going to hear them in America. I believe it's part of their education. It doesn't mean we don't denounce them and say that kind of behavior is unacceptable.

Q. You've got 44,000 students at Wisconsin and a billion-dollar budget. Are universities getting too big, too dehumanizing?

A. There are advantages to big campuses -- choices, quality, depth, brilliant teaching and research. A great research university such as we have here in Madison must anticipate the future, educate young people for a world we can't even begin to describe.

Q. American education in general is increasingly portrayed as inadequate. Is the University of Wisconsin guilty?

A. It is one of the handful of places in the world where new knowledge is being created, from fundamental discoveries that improve health to new poetry and literature. After all, Wisconsin is not only the place where the first work on vitamin D was done, but it is also where unemployment insurance was developed. That's the creation of knowledge.

Q. What grade would you give U.S. colleges?

A. Higher education is one of few areas where this country competes with the rest of the world and wins. The best of American higher education outstrips any in the world. Look where the rest of the world goes for higher education, for graduate degrees. They come here.

Q. Research carries a huge price tag. With the budget squeezed at every level, how are you going to pay for it?

A. The Federal Government has to recognize that its investment in research and development in basic sciences is going to have to expand for this country to be competitive. That's a federal function, not a state function. If we ask anything of our national Government, it's that it have a longer view of the future, that it make sure that the infrastructure -- which includes basic research -- is in place and very dynamic.

Q. You're talking about graduate work and advanced scholars. What about the failure of American education at the public-school level?

A. Public high schools are turning out students who are certainly not college ready, students who have limited writing, reading and thinking skills. We're not going to survive as a country unless public schools teach people to read and write.

But it's not just public schools; it's poor families. In the end, what will make this country lag behind is our inability to deal with issues of poverty, with the problems of the poorest children in our society.

Q. Is there a ray of hope?

A. Yes, because we have new constituencies that are interested. First, there's clear recognition by the business community that our survival as a nation, economically, depends on what we do with public education. Second, there's a group of younger Governors who are reforming their own education systems, making a bigger investment, holding them accountable.

It takes coalitions to improve the quality of education. It cannot be done simply by a band of good educational leaders.

Q. George Bush talks about being the education President. Does his Administration share your view?

A. Well, we're beating on him. It's not clear yet whether the Administration is prepared to be bold, that it understands the building blocks of American enterprise.

Q. Before coming to Wisconsin and the Big Ten, when you were president of New York City's Hunter College, you probably didn't know a quarterback sneak from a pickpocket. Have you made the transition?

A. I actually had some people tutor me. But I still listen to the opera while I'm watching the football games.

The fun of education and of being an educational leader is learning new subjects. I've never lost the excitement of learning. If it's not fun, it's not worth doing. But every commencement, I decide I'll try another year.