Deep thinkers missing in action

At Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., the undergraduate curriculum is undergoing a top-to-bottom review.

The rich mix of lectures outside of class do seem well attended, but the hectic pace can sometimes work against deeper learning, says Sujean Lee, president of Harvard's undergraduate council.

"There is no reflection time whatsoever," says the senior biology major. "I don't even account for reflection in my schedule. The fact that I don't even think there needs to be reflection time is telling what values are at Harvard. I have a journal I rarely write in."

Many students seem to think they gain more from their extracurricular activities than from their classes, she adds.

For Hrabowski at UMBC, anti-intellectualism in higher education was summed up perfectly in the response to a recent speech he gave to a group of academics.

"I was making the case that universities should be celebrating the student who is accomplishing a lot in English literature as much, or more, than the student who's a great basketball player," he says. "Well, when I said that, they just laughed. They laughed! That's the problem we face."

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Intercollegiate sports can have a corrosive effect on educational values, even on elite campuses. That's the thesis of "The Game of Life," a seminal book coauthored in 2001 by William Bowen, a former president of Princeton University.

But there's an active debate about how responsible sports are for what some see as an intellectual culture that's not living up to its potential at Princeton.

"Princeton does have a big-time sports culture," says history professor Anthony Grafton. "We actually have a much bigger proportion of recruited athletes than many people think. Athletics pose a challenge.... They do pull a lot of the energy away from students and what they may be doing in class."

English professor John Fleming has been writing a regular column for Princeton's student newspaper about the intellectual climate on campus. A former athlete, he enjoys campus sports, but notes misplaced priorities among some athletes on campus.

"When I meet someone at Princeton who says, 'I'm here to row,' I just figure, well, nobody should be here who isn't here to get a great education first and foremost," Dr. Fleming says.

Some students, however, are circumspect about the issue.

"I don't know whether athletics is a problem or not," says Jason Navarino, who is majoring in political science. "But there always seems to be the right number of running backs on the football team."

Dane Claussen, a professor at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, Pa., points to the NCAA's recent push for reform, which began in the early 1990s, as recognition of the problem of anti-intellectualism.

"It's kind of funny that athletics got a free ride on campus - so little scrutiny, for so long," he says. "I think, though, that with all the sports scandals on campus in the last few years, people are beginning to get a better picture of how the tail is wagging the dog."

In at least one place, though, the "big man on campus" is more likely to be a bespectacled chess player than a burly football player.

The chess team at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has cheerleaders, pep rallies, and road trips. It's a winning team of intellectual athletes - complete with nicknames like the "Hammer From Alabama."

The team's star is Alex "the Invincible" Onischuk, a hero to the nose-in-the-books set on campus. A 26-year-old Russian grand master, Mr. Onischuk once played Gary Kasparov, the world's top player, to a draw.

The school has sports teams, but it's the chess team that gets the most attention, just the way President Freeman Hrabowski likes it.

"In my mind, we spend much too much time overemphasizing athletics and underemphasizing intellectual activity," he says. "We wanted to focus on the life of the mind in a proactive way."

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