UO sports, academics both can excel.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Dave Frohnmayer For The Register-Guard

In my 12 years as president of the University of Oregon, I have watched debates that pit the various elements of higher education against one another.

These debates assume th at the success of one comes at the expense of the other - research or teaching, undergraduate education or graduate, in-state students or out of state.

These are false dichotomies.

Equally spurious is the debate that pits athletics against academics. To argue that one must choose academic excellence or athletic excellence is an oversimplification.

What is the relative priority of athletics at the UO? Academic quality is the cornerstone of our identity as a public research university. It is defined in our mission statement, `a community of scholars committed to the highest standards of academic inquiry, learning and service.'

Duck athletics is an integral part of this university, and we should demand and expect the same degree of excellence on the athletic field as we do in the classroom.

The relationship between sports and academics is kept in proper perspective by basing every decision related to athletics on the fundamental principle that athletes are students first.

We take great pride in such meas- ures of our academic success as the graduation rates of our student- athletes.

Those rates have risen steadily in recent years, but data that suggest a decrease in UO graduation rates in some specific sports must be taken seriously.

We have interest from private donors in supporting a new academic learning center for student-athletes to replace the current outmoded facilities. We would welcome this investment in the academic success of our student-athletes.

There are, admittedly, threats to the quality of our institution. Since the early 1990s, the UO has faced disinvestment by a state that once funded one-third of our operating budget but now funds about 13 percent.

The familiar issues on campus for the past 15 years have included lagging faculty salaries, inadequate facilities and other threats to quality.

What have we done in the face of this disinvestment?

An important step was launching the largest private fundraising campaign in Oregon's history. Campaign Oregon is on track to exceed the goal of raising $600 million in support of our top priorities.

To date, we have raised almost $70 million to support student scholarships and other initiatives related to access; almost $50 million in new endowed support for faculty, including more than 30 endowed chairs and professorships; $10 million to create a fund for faculty excellence to allow us to retain our very best faculty; and well in excess of $100 million for new facilities, including the Lewis Center for Neuroimaging, the Lillis Business Complex, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, a new education building, the MarAbel B. Frohnmayer Music Building, a renovated Jimmy Miller Theatre Complex, and a two-phase $70 million Integrative Science Complex.

We have leveraged private support and the initiative of our faculty and staff to fuel an impressive growth in research and scholarship. Since 2001, external funding for research, primarily from federal sources, has increased by 65 percent, from $57.8 million to a record $95.2 million in 2006.

During this period, the integrative science initiative has achieved national distinction in neuroscience and associated biological, cognitive and computational sciences. The Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute is Oregon's first signature research center for the purpose of growing research and commercialization to accelerate innovation-based economic development in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.

The Warsaw Sports Marketing Center in the Lundquist College of Business attracts students from around the world and is ranked No. 1 in the country. And the special edu- cation program within the College of Education is ranked third by U.S. News and World Report among all 261 special education programs in this country.

These accomplishments represent an extraordinary commitment to excellence on the part of our campus and our generous donors. Our academic enterprise, despite more than a decade of state disinvestment, has the most solid financial footing of any public university in the state.

Part of that work involves our commitment to a self-supporting athletic department, one of only a few programs in the country and the only one in Oregon that is self-supporting. The increased revenue provide by the privately funded expansion of Autzen Stadium allowed us to eliminate our historic subsidy of athletics that was in excess of $1 million per year - money that is invested in our academic program, including support for faculty salaries.

Our mission is to achieve excellence in all areas of the university - the classroom, the laboratory and the athletic field. From Bill Bowerman to our prize-winning faculty to our 19 Rhodes Scholars, the UO legacy for academic and athletic distinction can and will continue side by side.

Dave Frohnmayer is president of the University of Oregon.