Trustees, faculty plan to control athletics. (Newswatch).

When faculty at the University of Oregon heard the football stadium would get a $80 million expansion, yet academic budgets were being slashed and faculty were among the lowest paid in the area, they got angry.

They got even more angry when the athletics department moved the 2002 football game against archrival Oregon State to the Saturday before final exams, interrupting the "dead week" to accommodate TV scheduling.

Faculties at other schools where athletics wags the dog have agreed it's time to make major changes. Faculty senates at about two dozen major universities, and faculty leaders at about 30-40, have formed a movement to remake college athletics over the next decade.

Joining them in January was the powerful Association of Governing Boards (AGB), whose board of directors endorsed the coalition for its 34,000 members--university trustees, regents, presidents and chancellors.

"Our athletic directors haven't shown a very good record in managing these issues, so it's time for those ultimately responsible for our institutions--the governing boards and trustees--to weigh in," said Richard T. Ingram, president of the AGB. It's overdue. "And where the trustees and boards are part of the problem, they need to get themselves back on track."

Plans to rein in athletics include raising academic standards for athletes, curtailing excesses in athletics programs that have often led to highly embarrassing scandals, controlling competition between schools to build more lavish facilities, and limiting the power of TV networks in scheduling games.

The coalition plans to hold national conferences to set up a specific agenda for change and to seek help from other groups. The president of the ...