University of Nike, Joshua Hunt
University of Nike, Joshua Hunt
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University of Nike
How Corporate Cash Bought American Higher Education

Author: Joshua Hunt

Narrator: Chris Andrew Ciulla

Unabridged: 8 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/26/2019


Synopsis

The dramatic expose of how the University of Oregon sold its soul to Nike, and what that means for the future of our public institutions and our society.

In the mid-1990s, facing severe cuts to its public funding, the University of Oregon—like so many colleges across the country—was desperate for cash. Luckily, the Oregon Ducks' 1995 Rose Bowl berth caught the attention of the school's wealthiest alumnus: Nike founder Phil Knight, who was seeking new marketing angles at the collegiate level. And so the University of Nike was born: Knight has so far donated more than half a billion dollars to the school in exchange for high-visibility branding opportunities.

But as journalist Joshua Hunt shows in University of Nike, Oregon has paid dearly for the veneer of financial prosperity and athletic success that has come with this brand partnering.

Hunt uncovers efforts to conceal university records, buried sexual assault allegations against university athletes, and cases of corporate overreach into academics and campus life.

Encompassing more than just sports and the academy, University of Nike is a riveting story of our times.

About Joshua Hunt

Joshua Hunt is a former foreign correspondent for Reuters in Tokyo. His work has also appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, the California Sunday Magazine, and the Atavist Magazine. He is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he was a fellow at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and a recipient of the Lynton Fellowship in Book Writing.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jeff

“University of Nike” by Joshua Hunt 4/5: I have long had a love-hate relationship with my alma mater, the University of Oregon. I valued the education I received, and some of the professors I encountered, when pursuing my master’s degree there in the 1980s. To this day, I enjoy following several of th......more

Goodreads review by Mark

What happens when a public university is faced with cuts in public funding? The first source to make up those dollars is tuition but that is a limited pool. The next source is alumni and friend but the trouble that too is a limited pool. Finally, the university may turn to foundations and research g......more

Goodreads review by Miller

Having absorbed a lot of this living and consuming media here in Eugene for a couple of decades, it is hardly a bombshell, but it is an excellent telling of what happened to the U of O over that time. A cautionary tale of what has become of state-funded higher education in general and how - slowly b......more

Goodreads review by K

This book is a hot mess. It rambles back and forth across decades and subjects, and yet manages to also be dull and repetitive at the same time. It's salacious sometimes and analytical at other times, but with no rhyme or reason to when it's one or the other. And it ranges so far from Nike and its r......more