FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[smedindy]

I think the folks at DPU need to realize that just improving the football facilities to NCAC standards doesn't mean they're favoring football. You don't even need to put it on a pedestal to do that.

[wallyworld12]

Agreed, Smed. You put it better than I did.

[TitanPride]

But if you don't have competitive financial aid packages, regardless if they are an athlete or not, you will have difficulty getting people to attend your University.

It is a well known fact that DePauw is not as supportive of their students as other schools are. It costs a lot of money to attend DePauw, and by providing little financial aid, you are necessarily limiting the amount of students who would even consider going to a school like DePauw.

Couple that with poor facilities, and in a new league, with your in-state rival and other programs like Franklin and Trine, you have to make the necessary adjustments to stay in the game.

DePauw is very successful at women's athletics and have a proud tradition that will continue in the NCAC. The complaint shared by the Bear and Wes is that the Administration (writ-large) doesn't seem to put football on a pedestal above other sports. The way Kenyon and Denison do with swimming.

Compared with whom?  Among the Midwest's top tier liberal arts schools, Depauw is known for its very large and aggressive merit scholarships.  It's not unusual for Depauw's strong applicants to receive in the range of $20k per year in merit $, which is a little unusual for a school with nationally regarded academics.  You will find that most liberal arts schools in the next tier up (Grinnell, Carleton, etc.) offer no merit $.   

On top of that, Depauw lists their average need-based financial aid package as $21,673.  That's huge!  If I'm a student looking at Depauw, I know this year's costs were $46,700.  If I'm a good student, I'm going to get a scholarship in the range of $20k per year.  That brings the costs down to $26k per year which sounds better.  If my family has a financial need (i.e. can't afford 26k per year), I know that there is still plenty of help available -- on average, to the tune of $21k per year, of which probably $12-15k is grant money coming from Depauw.  There are tons of colleges who would love to be in the position to offer this type of financial aid while still providing a top notch education.

Don't want to sound combative, just as a 3rd party observer, it doesn't seem to me that purely the amount of financial aid is the problem. 

[DPU3619]

Don't want to sound combative, just as a 3rd party observer, it doesn't seem to me that purely the amount of financial aid is the problem. 

I never said it was purely the problem.  In my mind, it's a combination of small factors that are leading to a big problem.  It's a lot of aid to have to provide to 2400 students or so.  I understand the financial situation, particularly with the endowment taking as bad of a hit as it did a few years ago.  That being said, in my opinion, it's obvious that the aid being provided to the football program is significantly smaller than it was just a few years ago. Facilities are important, and DePauw's aren't good.  I understand that.  But, you just put the best two seasons in school history together and then this happens.  It just doesn't add up to me.  Just look at the roster size compared to years' past. Look at the caliber of players.  Robby Long is a good recruiter.  That staff is full of good recruiters. 

It's probably a combination of those things and the fact that Wabash is currently the premiere D3 program in Indiana right now.  That doesn't help recruiting either.

[fantastic50]

Make the female/male ratio more reasonable.  It's been moving more and more female for over a decade.

This is a challenge across the country, at all kinds of institutions, because (both in high school and college), young women outperform their male counterparts in the classroom.  For selective colleges, such as those in the NCAC, this means that there will be more qualified female applicants than qualified male applicants. Among the top-tier applicants who are being considered for significant merit scholarships, there are more young women, as well. 

If you only consider students qualifications, your student body will be over half female.  If you want to balance it 50/50, then do you turn away (or more likely, give less financial aid to) better-qualified female applicants in favor of less-qualified male applicants?  (A form of affirmative action for men ... that's certainly not politically correct.)  If you do this, then perhaps those relatively-weaker male students are retained and graduated at lower rates, which causes challenges both in terms of financial stability and perceived prestige.

On the other hand, if you do nothing and your student body slowly becomes over half female, there is an eventual tipping point (and I'm told it's at about 60/40) an your institution starts to become less attractive to male applicants.  (At 17 years old, if I was looking at two otherwise identical colleges, and one of them had a 50/50 ratio while the other had two young ladies per guy, my reasoning would have been different, but I guess I'm getting old.)  Anyway, once the percentage of male students drops to a certain point, it tends to keep dropping, rather than return toward a balance.

It's no secret that the economic conditions have made things challenging for the admissions/financial aid sides of a lot of small midwestern colleges.  If the applicant pool takes a hit in terms of ability to pay, one way to deal with it is to offer admission to some students whose academic qualifications may be a bit weaker, but whose families are able to foot more of the bill.  However, when the academic profile of your incoming class drops, then prestige suffers.  Another angle is to back off on diversity goals (because students from historically-underrepresented minority groups, on average, have greater financial need), but the administration and faculty at most small colleges won't want to do that, either.  So, a slight increase in the percentage of female students is one way to balance the books, without sacrificing academic profile or diversity, and may be more palatable than the alternatives, in the short term.  That being said, Depauw's substantial endowment should allow some flexibility in this situation, even if that endowment isn't offering huge returns in the current market.

[smedindy]

(At 17 years old, if I was looking at two otherwise identical colleges, and one of them had a 50/50 ratio while the other had two young ladies per guy, my reasoning would have been different, but I guess I'm getting old.)

"Two girls for every boyyyyyyyy!"

/showing my age that I made that reference

[fantastic50]

I was thinking the same thing when I wrote that line!

[wabco]

Hmmm ... DePauw has always been a target rich enviornment for Wabash dates : ... better parties, less regulations, more freedom at Wabash.  Now you describe a DePauw plan to nurture this target rich enviornment with lower class male athletics support, making sure smart women are rewarded (regardless of % mix and damage to male numbers), ... and the result: ... "in addition to free beer in the endzone", monkey stomp football game scores and possessing the Bell forever, ... now we also have a greater date pool from which to choose.  Life just gets grander and grander in C-ville.

My nickle:  stand up and make the point that "favoring the football program" (whatever that means) by improving and dedicating assets to that team in the way of facilities etc. HAS TO BE DONE.  Nothing to do with genuflecting to "gender equality."  It has everything to do with: 1) permitted in D III, 2) it will attract more males to the college with the academic requirements desired, 3) it will not tax financial/merit aid any more than at present, 4) it will add to the enjoyment/excitement/enthusiasm/ quality of life of the undergraduate ... which translates into more demand to be a Dannie (boys and girls ... hence also supporting womens' athletics).  Gentlemen:  this is a no brainer.  There is money.  Suck it up.  It is the right thing to do and with positive results on so many fronts.  Why are so many schools ... NCAC especially with similar "challenges" to those voiced above by the challenge voicers ... doing it?  Because the return to male/female balance, impact on desirability of the school, support for other athletics (look at Wabash's success with other sports teams with the advent of the football coach who supporets his players also participating in other sports coupled with the publicity of its successful flagship athletic sports program of football) is in fact there.

With all due respect ... only Dannie leadership (the same ones who gave scholarship to needy Wabash students of Mexican heritage) ... could add 2 and 2 and never find an answer.  Perhaps more umbrellas would help.

[DPU3619]

That's the smartest thing you've ever said.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

But if you don't have competitive financial aid packages, regardless if they are an athlete or not, you will have difficulty getting people to attend your University.

It is a well known fact that DePauw is not as supportive of their students as other schools are. It costs a lot of money to attend DePauw, and by providing little financial aid, you are necessarily limiting the amount of students who would even consider going to a school like DePauw.

Couple that with poor facilities, and in a new league, with your in-state rival and other programs like Franklin and Trine, you have to make the necessary adjustments to stay in the game.

DePauw is very successful at women's athletics and have a proud tradition that will continue in the NCAC. The complaint shared by the Bear and Wes is that the Administration (writ-large) doesn't seem to put football on a pedestal above other sports. The way Kenyon and Denison do with swimming.

My son was recruited by Depauw for baseball and was very interested in going there. It was in his top 3. But when push came to shove we just could not afford it. I originally was dealing with the Financial Aid Officer assigned to him. The initial offer was not that competitive so I tried to get more and we did. But it still was not competitive. Son explained htis to the coach and he had me call financial aid again. She was expecting my call and said she would forward my request to her boss. I eventually got a call form him. We had a very nice conversation and although he said he would really like my son to attend his college he could not provide any more help. We continued to talk for a while and he confessed that there were no many kids attending Depauw in that fit Social Economic profile. We made too much for Fed financial aid But our EFC was too low for them to help out further.

Not sure how much this may effect Football players, But I know there Baseball team was very good this year.

[fantastic50]

For what it's worth (not much except as a rough measure of perceived prestige), the new US News college rankings are out, and here are the rankings (in the national liberal arts college category) of the NCAC institutions.

#26 Oberlin
#32 Kenyon

#49 Denison
#54 Depauw
#56 Wabash
#63 Wooster

#82 Allegheny

#108 Ohio Wesleyan
#121 Wittenberg

#167 Hiram

[Bishopleftiesdad]

About the same as last year.....

[BashDad]

I have a question. When does the Carnegie Melon / Bash game become more than just another game against the UAA. Now? 'Cause they just won again. By a lot. They're gonna beat Depauw next week and show up in Crawfordsville undefeated and with an offense averaging close to 30ppg, a defense giving up a little over 10, and a stud QB (at least on paper; haven't watched him.)

Here are Kalkstein's numbers through three games, against teams ranked--per KickOff--164th, 105th, and 156th.

Kalkstein,Rob  27-40    67.5    682 yds    7  TDs 1 Int

Do we care yet? I dunno. But those are solid numbers. Kick-Off ranks the Tartans 146th, btw.

[Pat Coleman]

Catholic isn't that good. You see by the rankings you cite that only one of the three wins was any kind of surprise.

[BashDad]

Sure. But against a bad team, the team that's already won a game that they weren't supposed to (and by a lot), saw their quarterback complete 10 of 12 passes for 290 yards and 3 TDs. Those are practice numbers. I'm not saying they're ready for prime time, but as far as early indications that a team may be pretty good, CMU has kind of checked every box.