Thursday evening in Jefferson Hall, a cross section of the young and those with graying hair formed a cluster of blazers and bow ties, wool sweaters and even a casual fleece here and there. The well-dressed audience coupled with the room's colonial decor hardly evoked an atmosphere of "beer and circus."
But that's what everyone wanted to hear about. That is, they were there to listen to a lecture on Indiana English Prof. Murray Sperber's new book: "Beer and Circus."
The author espoused the tenets of his research from the low wooden podium.
Dressed in navy blue Dockers, a gray and white tweed sports coat and scuffed brown shoes with white athletic socks. It was an ensemble that proves a noticeable contrast with Athletic Director Terry Holland's Virginia-blue blazer and matching tie complete with a monogrammed, orange Oxford.
Fortunately, Sperber is accustomed to being at odds with members of a large university's athletic department. And a disparity in coordination doesn't hold a candle to some of his former clashes, which include a very public back-and-forth dispute with former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight.
After all, Sperber's message is one that most people associated with big-time university sports don't want to hear.
In fact, it is one most big-time universities don't want to hear, period.
It is the message of beer and circus.
Spreading the word
In its most basic breakdown, "Beer and Circus" is about the rise of three trends in higher education at large universities: the prioritization of graduate research over undergraduate education, the explosion of college sports' popularity and the overwhelming presence of beer on college campuses.
"Now there is a tremendous synergy between the three of them," Sperber said and added that the evidence is everywhere.
As he spoke in front of the crowd, Sperber recalled his own experience as a freshman at Purdue University.
During the halcyon era of the late 1950s, professors were always in their offices and taught four classes per semester. Sperber was one of 15 in his freshman English class, he said.
That was before ESPN's 24-hour sports coverage transformed the college arena and before Budweiser's Spuds McKenzie campaign of the mid-80s.
"I now teach freshman English in a class of 150 students," Sperber said and explained that he cannot begin to give to his students the individual attention he received.
Sperber, with the help of Indiana bursar's office, once even calculated what the university's revenue difference would be if he taught a smaller class.
A 15 student seminar would cost the school $22,000. A 150-student lecture generates $300,000.
Sperber said the "beer and circus" scene that manifests itself in stadium football games, tailgates, March Madness, sports bars and keg-soaked parties then serves two purposes.
It draws undergraduates and their tuition dollars to the school in the first place and keeps them entertained once they get there.
"Schools very consciously market this, and I find this quite deplorable," Sperber said.
The University, like the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Michigan, falls into a special category of large universities that Sperber referred to as the "public Ivies."
Although undergraduates at these schools undergo a more competitive admissions process, they are generally better prepared to handle large lecture classes, even though the "beer and circus" still is present.
Sperber used Virginia's "fourth-year fifth" as an example.
Still, he said, "You really don't have the problems that Florida State has. I'm much more concerned about all the other public schools."
A cause for change
In spite of his thick glasses and 29 years of professorship, Sperber is not one of those archetypal, "pointy-headed" academics who doesn't "know which end of the football to kick."
He has played semi-pro basketball in France, he has worked as a sports reporter and he has authored three other books on college sports.
"I was very interested in what he had to say," Holland said. "We're always interested in constructive criticism. It's not always as well researched as what Mr. Sperber has done."
Sperber characterized Holland's position - he invited the author to meet with him Friday - as an exception to the "deep hostility" proffered by most protectorates of the athletic establishment.
"I can assure you most athletic directors in America would not come to hear me talk," he said. "He didn't have to."
Ironically, Sperber always got along with the outgoing director at his own school. It was just Knight and the legions of Hoosier basketball fans that he had problems with.
"I think they should have fired [Knight] years ago, and I made the mistake of saying that," Sperber told the Jefferson Hall crowd earlier.
Knight was eventually fired last summer, not for his court side temper tantrums but for grabbing a student he believed had addressed him disrespectfully.
After Sperber criticized the "Emperor of Indiana," an angry backlash forced him out of Bloomington for the fall semester.
Incensed, threatening e-mails flooded his mailbox. His wife couldn't use their credit card in Bloomington without being asked if she was related to him.
As a result, Sperber didn't teach last semester, and he and his wife wintered in his native Montreal.
"The idea that you would threaten a professor's freedom of speech over a sport ... that's unforgivable," he said, admitting that he repressed his anger over the turmoil for a long time.
But Sperber is no stranger to exercising his freedom of speech and he says facing the National Guard and California Highway Patrol as a Berkeley protestor during the '60s was far scarier than the Knight incident.
Those experiences also helped prepare him to take on the cause of college sports and reform.
"I deeply believe in public education," he said, citing his experience at Purdue and his wife's at Berkeley.
Eventually he'd like to see universities stop accepting so many undergraduates, for college sports to scale down and for the junior college system to take a larger role in preparing high school graduates before they head off for college.
"Many undergraduates are just not prepared for college, but because the school needs warm bodies, they take them," he said.
However, although Sperber criticizes the research-oriented, two-class teaching faculty phenomena, he admitted "I know whereof I speak."
Sperber himself only teaches two classes per semester, and he has four books to his name.
"There have been times when I've cut corners and felt badly about it," he said. But, "I've tried very hard to do the best job I can.
He knows every trick in the book for skipping faculty meetings, but he hasn't allowed his book talks to keep him from class.
Nor has Indiana ever rewarded him for his outside research. Instead, his reward has been finding an authorial voice that has effectively conveyed the extent of his passion for public education.
"If there's a judgement day, I'm feeling very confident about what I did"
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