Making Dollars and “Sense” at Duke
09 June 2014
In the fall of 1968, Duke’s Academic Council—the university’s equivalent of a faculty senate—convened an ad hoc committee to explore the financial and moral well-being of the school’s athletic program. The inquiry arose from concerns over the athletic department’s $500,000 annual deficit, but its goals were loftier. “We hoped we could reconstitute athletics to be what it could be, [so it] would not dominate the scene like it does today,” says retired Duke Sociology professor Jack Preiss, who was among the committee’s five members.
