Auburn University’s athletics department pressured school officials to keep the public administration major after an academic program review committee voted 13-0 to remove it in 2013, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
The WSJ reported emails show athletics officials offered to fund the major and have made similar investments in other academic programs that have not been publicized.
Michael Stern, chairman of Auburn’s economics department, told The WSJ athletics operated like a “second university.”
“Auburn’s academic community makes all academic program and curriculum decisions," an Auburn representative told The WSJ. "Auburn is fully committed to the integrity of its academic programs.”
According to The WSJ, 26 players, or 32 percent of the 2014 football team, were majoring in public administration.
Read the full report at The WSJ’s website.
UPDATE: Dr. Joseph Aistrup, the dean of liberal arts who made the decision to keep public administration, gave a statement to The Auburn Plainsman regarding his ruling.
"The academic program review report indicated that political science wanted to eliminate this degree because the department did not have the faculty resources to continue to support the major," Aistrup said in an email. "As the new Dean, I was willing to provide the necessary resources to continue this major. Shortly after I arrived on campus, I had a meeting with the new chair of political science and the program director of public administration. At that meeting, I asked if hiring a lecturer in political science would help to alleviate the burden. They indicated it would, and thus supported continuing the program."
Aistrup, who has a degree in public administration, said he made the decision without interference from the athletic department.
"I made this evaluation independent of any contact that may have occurred between the Athletic Department and any other administrator at Auburn," Aistrup said. "The fact that there were student athletes in this program was unknown to me at that time, because none of the academic program reports that I had available to me during my interviews mentioned this fact."
Aistrup also said he had no contact with Athletic Director Jay Jacobs or the Athletic Department until November of 2013, two months after he was hired away from Kansas State University.
In that meeting, Aistrup said he "did not discuss public administration" with Jacobs.
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