College Athletics and Graduation Rates

An article by School of Management professor of accounting LuAnn Bean, Ph.D., C.P.A., C.I.A., C.F.E., was accepted for publication in the September/October
issue of The Journal of Higher Education. Her research addresses the impact of intercollegiate athletics on graduation rates among major NCAA Division 1
universities, and coincidentally arrives in time for college football and basketball seasons. Dr. Bean’s co-authors are Dr. William D. Mangold, professor
of sociology at the University of Arkansas, and Dr. Douglas Adams, associate professor of sociology at the University of Arkansas. They explore the
relationship between intercollegiate athletic program success and theories of student persistence by examining the impact that athletic programs have on
institutional graduation rates. The authors emphasize that they are “not concerned with the argument about the relative emphasis that colleges place on
athletics versus academics.” Instead, their research is “narrowly focused on the relationship between organizational success in intercollegiate athletics
and overall institutional graduation rates for all undergraduates.”