Kevin Vranes has a phud in Physical Ocean- ography and Cli- matology. He now studies sci- ence policy and politics at the Well not directly. I'm 99.9% sure he doesn't know who I am, much less has ever read this blog. Carl Wieman is a hyper-popular physics professor at the Univ. of Colorado (my current employer) who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001.
Now I'm as big a sports fan as any academic you're ever going to meet, but I see a gross imbalance and loss of perspective in the D-I college sports world. The examples abound, but the most glaring are the obscene salaries paid to D-I football and men's bball coaches.
In this post I roasted CU for giving deposed football coach Gary Barnett a $3,000,000 contract buyout. I guessed that Barnett's buyout alone is about an order of magnitude higher than the combined salaries of the three CU professors who have won the Nobel Prize in the past five years. If that can be viewed as anything other than a complete disgrace, please feel free to enlighten me in the comments.
Well, I wasn't far off. Wieman's base salary is $227,000. And now he's leaving CU for the University of British Columbia and it seems one of his reasons is that obscene salary difference:
"It was pretty clear to me that in Canada, their universities are much less wrapped up in politics and much less dominated by athletics," said Wieman, who mentioned that scandals surrounding the athletics department were a "pervasive distraction from (CU's) focus on education."At the end of the press conference, Wieman joked that UBC's football coach receives a salary comparable to that of an assistant professor, which is far less compared to the millions of dollars the CU football coach makes each year.
Thanks, Carl! Maybe it's a first small step to reintroducing some perspective on the academia-sports game and what the ultimate purpose of academia is.
Comments
# 1 | Dave | March 21, 2006 3:58 PM
And it's certainly wonderful news for us over here at UBC...
# 2 | J-Dog | March 21, 2006 4:08 PM
Yes, you are correct that Gary Barnett = Big Turd. I have loathed the guy ever since he left Northwestern in the lurch, BUT, hindsight being 20-20 and all that, it was good that he took his act to CO and left here after all!
However, someone (YOU!) should tell Carl that deserting your post in the face of the enemy in wartime (Republican War On Science) is a court-martial offense. He needs to get his particle-chasing, trophy-winning butt back here.
# 3 | Chad Orzel | March 21, 2006 4:22 PM
True story: The very first time I gave a talk at a scientific meeting, I was in a session featuring a whole bunch of talks relevant to BEC (which was then still six months or a year away). My work had nothing to do with BEC, so when my turn came, I started off by saying "Now, for a change of pace, this talk will have absolutely nothing to do with Bose-Einstein Condensation."
Wieman stood up, and walked out.
(It may well have been a coincidence, but that's the sort of thing that tends to stick in your mind...)
# 4 | CanuckRob | March 21, 2006 4:25 PM
Glad to see my alma mater is getting another Nobel recipient. J-Dog, we in Canada have a long and proud tradition of accepting Americans that don't want to fight, many Americans were "stationed" in Canda during varoius conflicts, why should the WoS be any different:)
And we also have a rule that only one team is allowed to ask god for help in winning the game, it is so stupid when both do and then only one gets rewarded. We think it should be the team with the best athletes or coaching, not with the loudest godbotherers.
# 5 | J-Dog | March 21, 2006 4:51 PM
Canuck Rob- Yep... I was on my way to see you guys, when I found out I was 366 in the draft lottery! The last time I ever got lucky in a lottery BTW... Congrats to you, I guess we HAVE been bush-wacked...
Good Day to you hoser! Eh!
# 6 | PhilipJ | March 22, 2006 1:57 AM
I saw Carl talk at UBC this past November on using science tools to teach science. The faculty who attended (the room was blocked, something like 350 in attendance) all seemed very enthusiastic about his ideas, and I know of at least one prof who went on to implement some of the things he talked about in their own class. Definitely a big steal for UBC!
Also, Hi Dave! (I attended the first week of your molecular techniques course this past summer.)
# 7 | Dave S. | March 22, 2006 1:28 PM
It's true we're not as wrapped up in athletics here. I'm at one of the top football universities in the country, and they're lucky to get 3000 people at one of their regular season games, not that the stadium holds much more than that. In one game there was a grand total of 210 spectators. Most US college games have more peanut vendors than that. Plus, there are no athletic scholarships to my knowledge, at least not full ones, except at Simon Fraser University. I could be wrong on that last one.
# 8 | apalazzo![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/nosenada/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 25, 2006 4:02 PM
I do miss Canada ...