Valuable insights applicable to subsequent reform campaigns and the faculty role in college sports oversight were obtained via experience in the 1990s with projects related to environmental and national information infrastructure initiatives. For example, the campaign for systemic engineering education reform was the first to build on this experience. In turn, this campaign helped guide The Drake Group campaign to restore academic primacy in America’s colleges and universities that support big-time athletic programs. Taken together, all of these campaigns illuminated the formidable institutional opposition to change, especially in higher education … opposition that becomes manifest when the vested interests of even highly respected people and institutions are threatened, or, are even perceived to be threatened.
