Chancellor Got it Right (Editorial)

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executives must have been mortified when Ken Biley, a University of Arkansas basketball letterman from 1991-94, told America that he really didn’t need to go to college to know how to manage a Wal-Mart.

Biley’s comments were included during an ESPN feature called “Zero Percent: College Basketball’s Graduation Crisis,” which first aired March 1 on the international sports network’s “Outside the Lines program.” The episode, which highlighted men’s college basketball programs with abysmally low graduation rates such as the UA, has aired twice since then.

Admittedly, the day-to-day duties of most jobs don’t hinge on knowledge gained in college classrooms. Some of our area’s most successful business leaders never attended a university, and it’s true there’s no substitute for “real world” experience in any field.

But in today’s job market, a college degree is to job seekers what a high school diploma was 50 years ago.

A college education tells employers that candidates can master an area of study, start and finish something substantial and handle some level of responsibility. Biley’s comments, although not quoted verbatim above, inferred that management positions at Wal-Mart are not so cerebral.

This may not have been what Biley meant, but it’s certainly how it sounded. And given the competitiveness of today’s technology-injected retail market, we would beg to differ.

The ESPN program — along with the recent negative national publicity caused by former Razorbacks basketball Coach Nolan Richardson’s meltdown — did however result in something positive. They prompted UA Chancellor John A. White to write an essay titled “Student Athlete Graduation Rates: The Responsibilities of the University.”

The essay, available online at www.pigtrail.uark.edu, outlines White’s feelings about deficiencies in UA graduation rates for both the overall student body and athletes. White’s writing is thought provoking, fair and should earn him praise for attempting to extend more career and life opportunities to all students.

Unlike Biley, whose simplified message to young people is that success is not related to education, White offers a word of encouragement. Instead of chasing astronomically low chances of success in professional sports or hoping for luck, career opportunities can be created by hard professional and academic work.

If Biley had not played for the Razorbacks, failing to graduate most likely would not have afforded him the same opportunities.