To the editor:

Living in Lawrence, and having contact with students on campus, I (and they) have concerns regarding the current direction of the academic program and the focus on athletics at KU. The emphasis on athletics distorts the fundamental purpose of a well-rounded educational experience

One student says, “There is so much pressure to pick a major, immediately followed by a tunnel-visioned sort of curriculum, which I think inevitably leads to frustration and oftentimes a decision to drop out completely.”

Another student says: “The KU Athletics empire, and trappings and underpinnings thereof, is out of control. … (T)he prevailing priority of the university and its students recently seems to have shifted to sports, away from — what one would expect from an educational institution — education.”

Kansas Athletics has developed into a corporation. In recent years, we have experienced American corporations operating without checks and balances, which led to excesses and severe problems for all of us. Kansas Athletics is becoming another corporation “too big to fail or let fail.”

In conclusion, we feel that it is important that KU re-establish an emphasis on academics and provide to students an overall educational framework prior to each student becoming more focused and specialized. We feel the university should reassess their focus on education to include the vast amount of new information that causes a rapid change in understanding ourselves and the world around us. We feel that at present the university has too many territorial divisions that create poor feelings and relationships throughout the university.

Ross Duffy,

Lawrence