The Clarion
Aprin9^00^
An alternative path to
by Jim Reynolds
Is football really the answer for
dwindling enrollment numbers?
The recent flurry of discussion about the possibility of
football coming to our campus makes me wonder what other
scenarios have been studied. Unconvinced that football is the
golden touch panacea to our recruiting woes I am driven to
propose another route to our goal of increased enrollment that 1
don’t think has ever been considered by the Administration or
the Board. This is probably not a golden touch panacea either
and it may be that there is no such solution. We have a lot of
very bright people on this campus who have thought about this
issue. I suspect they have ideas that are as worthy of study as
the football program is and 1 encourage them to put their visions
forth in writing.
Rather than taking a gridiron route that would make Brevard
more like just about every other American college, 1 would prefer
to see the College embark on a path that will keep it somewhat
unique while making a contribution to the world rather than to
Division II or III athletics. 1 don’t have any visions de grandeur
that we will be attracting truly talented football players, I
suspect that we will get those who other schools rejected
because of limited athletic prowess or questionable intellectual
aptitude. What I write below, at this point, is only a vision
which, with research, may prove to be a fanciful poetic delusion.
But in a world that is contracting daily, 1 think there is a vast
market out there that we are not even considering. Given our
continually declining enrollments, that is shameful.
When 1 came to Brevard, in the fall of 1999, there were more
than 700 students on campus. The thing that really excited me
about the College was the high number of international stu
dents. In my first GEOL 101 class 1 had students from the UK,
Trinidad and Tobago, Bulgaria, and Sweden. 1 learned to greet
these and other students in their native languages, for example,
Georgian, Ibo, Swahili, Mandarin, and Japanese. Today, if 1 were
to say, “Geunarjoba!”, “Ole otu iti!”, “Habari gani! , or Zai
chien!” 1 would only get blank stares. One graduating senior
would still respond to “Konichi-wa!” but no one else would.
Some of these students were outstanding athletes, although the
futbol that some of them played was distinct from the foobaw
that is associated with almost every other American college.
Many of our few international students today are also outs
ing athletes.
Page 11
Brevard’s future
I, personally, am deeply saddened to see how few interna
tional smdents we currently have on campus. In 1999, they hailed
from 26 countries; today, 9 countries are represented. 1 do not
understand why we have let this happen. There are tens of
millions of potential international students that would do almost
anything to receive an education from an American institution of
higher learning, particularly one located in a safe, non-intimidating
environment. If we were to offer the equivalent of twenty full
scholarships to candidates from around the world, we would get
top quality athletes and scholars. Many well-to-do families in the
developing world would probably look upon a partial scholarship
of any amount as an incentive to send their son or daughter to the
U.S. for their higher education.
Why don’t we set a goal of trying to bring two to four
students from every country on the planet? With approximately
140 countries, this could mean 250-500 students. Agreements with
public or private recruiting organizations, such as the one we
used to have in Japan, could help us ease back in to our forgotten
international focus. What kind of campus culture would evolve
under these conditions? The College would have a flavor and
attraction like no other in the southeast. Middlebury College, in
Vermont, has made its name because of its focus on international
ism (The number of their applications goes up every year as a
result.) To me, this would be a very attractive environment to send
my children. 1 think a move toward internationalization would
provide a long term growth prospect. I look at football ^ a quick
patch attempt to make up for the failure of our current adm^^^s on
strategy’s goal to achieve 1000 students by 2008. The footba
proposal projects an additional 100 students which would bring
us from 525 to 625 students, still far short of the stated goa
Internationalization is more in line with the Col ege ission
S«n. than aiding . foo.b.ll P'og.™ -oM
ouc alhletics is a goal, intetnationalizalion could make us re y
“L i„ socc, .ennis, golf, cycling, whi«, sp«, s—g,
„ack, baskclball, baseball and an, otto spom that have str^g
international followings. One Brevard athlete ”
Sydney Olympics. I guarantee no football player ^ ^
pLball would bring us American football players ^ '
It might be a suitable quick f.x but I suspect we could do lot
ITfor the long term welfare of the college for the same pr ce by
considering internationalization. Let’s gel the biggest bang or our
buck that we can.
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