Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports is Crippling Undergraduate Education: Amazon.de: Murray Sperber: Englische Bücher

From Booklist

Sperber, an English professor at Indiana University and a longtime critic of major college-sports, offers a carefully researched examination of the substandard education received by undergraduates at many large universities. Although the book's subtitle suggests that the focus is on the deleterious effect of college athletics on educational quality, much of Sperber's attack is directed at more general failings: the pressure on tenured staff to do research; the lack of contact between professors and undergrads; the reliance on teaching assistants and part-time staff. In fact, the weakest part of the book is Sperber's attempt to establish a direct relationship between the presence of big-time athletics on campus and the poor education received by most undergraduates. The reader finishes the book convinced that athletics harms athletes, but that university education is in plenty of trouble with or without sports on campus. Sperber often shows up as a talking head on news shows, so expect his latest screed to generate controversy and demand. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

From Kirkus Reviews

Though not late-breaking news, here is an extremely dispiriting portrait of undergraduate life being reduced to a support unit for the athletic department, from long-time critic of the university sport scene Sperber (Onward to Victory, 1998, etc.).Following the money trail, many large state and private universities have put their emphasis on postgraduate research and thumbed their noses at undergraduate education. But since they need those tuition dollars, Sperber convincingly argues, they now entice students into their hallowed halls by promising them a darn good time-more often than not hinging on a hot sports scene liberally soaked in booze (especially when all you have to offer freshmen academically are lecture courses with 1,500 students being taught by a teaching assistant). From interviews and questionnaires and a culling of the literature, Sperber delineates a grotesque "beer and circus" culture, where binge drinking is fueled by corporate encouragement and if you can't be a hero on the field or court, maybe you can achieve renown through alcohol poisoning. Here is a world where the coach has more prestige and power than the university president. Witness Sperber's school, Indiana University: there's Bobby Knight, and there's whatsizname. ESPN has more attentive disciples than any Nobel-winning professor, but then the Nobel-winning professor doesn't teach anyway. If the sports teams cheat in recruiting and mock amateurism, then you might as well cheat in the classroom (even when grades are inflated because the need is there to show you've taught something). Sperber takes fraternities and sororities apart with a relish, not just as anti-intellectual, but as self-destructive liquor-centrals. Sperber's recommendations are sound-nix athletic scholarships, trim enrollment for smaller classes, accent teaching, separate out pure research, demand minimum levels of achievement-but a revolution away.A student nicely summed up Sperber's well-framed argument: college has become "a four-year party-one long tailgater-with an $18,000 annual cover charge." And you thought Dobie Gillis was bad. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

Alle Produktbeschreibungen

Kundenrezensionen

Es gibt noch keine Kundenrezensionen auf Amazon.de

5 Sterne

4 Sterne

3 Sterne

2 Sterne

1 Sterne

Kundenrezension verfassen

Die hilfreichsten Kundenrezensionen auf Amazon.com ^(beta)

Amazon.com: 34 Rezensionen

37 von 38 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

How universities cheat undergrads 20. September 2000

Von William Sheldon - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe

This latest effort by Prof. Murray Sperber, who made himself almost famous recently by taking the semester off from Indiana University to avoid the Bobby Knight cauldron, should be read by every concerned layman, university president, trustee, faculty member and investigative journalist. Sperber's larger theme -- that universities have abandoned undergraduate education for research while pushing the college kids toward beer-and-circus seven-day weekends -- is well illustrated. He also notes how university administrations have sharpened their accounting methods to make it harder and harder for anyone to keep track of how much XXXX money --- I almost said beer -- they actually pour into their intercollegiate programs. Reviews in major publications have run from warm to enthusiastic. Sperber's one-semester sabbatical from IU seemed to me like overkill a few months ago, but now that the IU president himself has sought off-campus shelter I don't think Sperber was off the mark at all. His book is a bull's-eye. His earlier seminal work -- College Sports, Inc. -- could have been titled The Emperor's New Clothes. It's worth reading today. I understand he has another book in the works. If enough people read what he says and then talk to each other then perhaps the system could be shamed into the radical change it needs. That includes a return to needs-based scholarships and the end of the one-year athletic scholarship that is plainly a salary for work.

23 von 24 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

Swings wildly, but lands a few near-knockout blows 23. September 2000

Von Ein Kunde - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

Sperber does a good job of documenting the general decline in the quality of undergraduate education in the United States. The book overstates and is a bit untempered, but the overall description of contemporary college life - students ignored by faculty and drinking away their four years - isn't that far off the mark. Don't let the subtitle fool you. Beer and Circus is about far more than the degradation of universities due to their emphasis on scholarship athletics. The abandonment of undergraduates is due to many other causes that Sperber discusses as well. Sperber is very sympathetic to the plight of the student trying to get a good education. His heart is in the right place. Beer and Circus won't delight college presidents, but could well serve as a call to arms by those consumers, the parents and students, who are paying large sums of money for education and are getting short changed.

28 von 31 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

Some people can't handle the truth 14. Oktober 2000

Von E. Martin - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

Sperber has been one of the most incisive observers of college sports since the publication of College Sports, Inc. Since then he has written perhaps the definitive history of Notre Dame during the Knute Rockne years.

In this book he brings the story of college sports and all its attendant ills into the decade of ESPN and the unholy alliance of "24/7" sports broadcasting, alcohol manufacturers and distributors (e.g. "Spuds MacKenzie" and the proliferation of "sports bars"), and university administrations which have turned relatively petty corruption into big business. Sperber, a former fraternity president, knows all too well that there are many different college students, but even the unreconstructed "party animals" are not his targets, rather it's the broadcasting/advertising/admissions complex mentioned above. The consequences range far beyond the "professionalization" of college sports to being a factor--albeit one factor--in the decline of undergraduate education itself.

Sperber played the role of Cassandra at Indiana through the Bobby Knight years and for his trouble been emailed death threats. More proof that the truth hurts and some people can't handle it. Also recommended is Hoberman's DARWIN'S ATHLETES (hell, anything Hoberman writes is recommended).

› Gehen Sie zu Amazon.com, um alle 34 Rezensionen zu sehen

Waren diese Rezensionen hilfreich? Wir wollen von Ihnen h�ren.

Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports is Crippling Undergraduate Education [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Weitere Ausgaben

Produktinformation

Mehr �ber den Autor

Produktbeschreibungen

From Booklist

From Kirkus Reviews

Tags

Kundenrezensionen

Kunden diskutieren

Neue Diskussion starten

Lieblingslisten

�hnliche Artikel finden

Anhand des Sachgebietes nach �hnlichen Produkten suchen:

Ihr Kommentar