The University of Massachusetts Faculty Senate defeated a motion urging UMass administration to drop football down a level or eliminate the program altogether.
The 26-14 vote against the motion was held Thursday on the Amherst, Mass., campus, according to reports.
UMass Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy had written a letter to faculty senators encouraging them to defeat the motion and keep the football program.
Here is the letter penned by Chancellor Subbaswamy to Faculty Senators in regard to the motion: pic.twitter.com/8hqU0whqo1
— Daniel Malone (@Daniel_Malone) April 28, 2016
Related: Should Eastern Michigan Drop Football?
This is not the first time campus leaders have questioned the direction of the UMass football program. Similar non-binding resolutions were held in January 2013 and December 2014, MassLive.com reported.
UMass made the jump from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS, formerly Division I-AA) to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS, formerly Division I-A) in 2011 and became bowl eligible in 2013. The Minutemen, who are leaving the Mid-American Conference, are 8-40 the past four seasons.
Despite that record, Subbaswamy supported the current state of UMass football and expressed frustration that this issue had come up again.
“I can’t control what the Faculty Senate does,” Subbaswamy told MassLive.com. “It’s a waste of this important body’s time, in my opinion, to keep bringing up this issue. We have lots of issues on the curriculum and we have lots of issues on our future planning and so forth. So I think the academic senate’s time should be more wisely spent than debating something over and over again.”
This week, the University of Idaho announced it is moving down from FBS to FCS, and Eastern Michigan said it will not eliminate football after faculty and students called for the university to drop the sport or move down from FBS to a lower level.
