The presidents of the 11 schools that make up the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) have made a unanimous decision to decline a request from U.S.News & World Report for detailed statistical information about the institutions' athletic teams and programs.
The group voted unanimously to turn down the request at a Dec. 18, 2002, meeting. A statement written by the 11 presidents was made public today by Norman Fainstein, president of Connecticut College and chair of the NESCAC presidents.
The members of NESCAC are Amherst College, Bates College, Bowdoin College, Colby College, Connecticut College, Hamilton College, Middlebury College, Trinity College, Tufts University, Wesleyan University and Williams College.
The full text of the presidents' statement follows:
Statement by the NESCAC Presidents in Declining to Participate in a U.S. News & World Report Survey of NCAA Division III Athletic Programs
Since its founding in 1971, the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) has been committed to a balanced and proportionate approach to college athletics, one in which intercollegiate competition, intramural play, physical education and fitness programs are viewed within the context of a liberal education aimed at the development of the whole student. In recent years, the NESCAC presidents have implemented a process of study and discussion to assure that NESCAC colleges remain true to our principles.
Within this context, we are troubled by the efforts of U.S. News & World Report to gather information about NESCAC athletic programs. The magazine first told member schools that information was being collected in order to rank NCAA Division III athletic programs. More recently, U.S. News asserts that it intends to offer the information on its Web page as a service to readers. No assurance is provided, however, that U.S. News will not use this information to rank colleges, whether in the immediate or more distant future.
Efforts by U.S. News and other enterprises to evaluate or rank our athletic programs raise serious concerns for us with regard both to the validity of such rankings and to their effect in influencing our own priorities. We believe that the present "data collection" process undertaken by U.S. News may well result in a publication that ranks college athletic programs. We are strongly opposed to such an undertaking. Accordingly, the NESCAC presidents agreed unanimously on December 18, 2002, not to provide U.S. News with information about our athletic programs and to state publicly our wish not to be included in any assessment by U.S. News of NCAA Division III athletic programs.
The NESCAC members are Amherst College, Bates College, Bowdoin College, Colby College, Connecticut College, Hamilton College, Middlebury College, Trinity College, Tufts University, Wesleyan University and Williams College.
