I went home this past weekend to realize that old GWU is a campus racked with scandal. Alledgedly the president of the college saw to it that a star basketball player's grade was changed so that said player would meet the NCAA standards for athletes to re-take classes. As could be expected, it didn't take long for this news to get out and for the past month or so NCAA officials, Sports Illustrated reporters and all kinds of media representatives have swarmed the campus. There's an ongoing investigation into the incident by the NCAA, three faculty members, including the head of the new law department, have resigned and there has been quite a student outcry, all because it seems that the university's board of trustees have decided to let the president go without punishment and to demote two of the deans (I guess to semi-deans or "Jimmy Deans").

Every day, the local newspaper's opinion column is literally nothing but letters to the editor calling for the president's resignation or for alumni to stop donating to the GWU's endowment. All this because a college that has just moved up into Division I of the NCAA, has essentially no national reputation (either academically or athletically), and that has now assured that it will never have one, at least a good one, wanted to make sure one of their basketball players could play.

I'm sure you're wondering why I've just related this rather long story to you. To put it simply, I'm showing that colleges just don't have their priorities straight anymore.

Take the commercials for three ACC schools, for a few less emphatic examples. Last year during the NCAA tournament, there was a Duke commercial that aired quite a few times that gave the impression that Duke is nothing but Cameron Indoor Stadium. It showed several Duke students, covered in blue paint and cheering on their team, freeze-framing each one and giving their future career accomplishments, i.e. "future senator" or "future 'Just Shoot Me' writer." Of course, the commercial implies, these young folks won't work or go through hardship to reach these positions of prestige ­ all they have to do is cheer and dance like methadone addicts.

There was another commercial during the tournament for the University of Maryland ¯ I don't know if I saw it more than I did the Duke ad, but it aired quite a few times. Rather than implying that Maryland is nothing but basketball, the commercial actually made a few references to the university's academic credentials, none of which I can recall at the moment (that should tell you something about the most vivid parts of the ad). A graphical representation of each academic achievement mentioned appeared onscreen for a second or two, only to go into a receptacle in the middle of the screen. At the end of the commercial, the receptacle closed and turned out to be a basketball, which bounced away toward whatever was to the right of the screen. Thus, it would seem that Maryland enjoys keeping all its most prestigious intellectual work inside a giant piece of sporting equipment. The symbolism is incredible.

The third commercial of the group is one for this very college. The brand new Wake Forest ad, which I saw for the very first time during the football game on Saturday, surprisingly shows sports images only in quick snippets. However, there is something far more disconcerting about it. There are a number of long overhead shots of the campus which show that Wake Forest is apparently made of gold. The whole thing has an eerie tint to it, a distracting one that seems to ensure that everything in the ad about small classes and diversity, or whatever the spokespeople in the thing say, is immediately forgotten. But I guess the whole gold campus thing is pretty appropriate, since a good portion of the student body is already made of money.

Now, I suppose I have to throw in one of my characteristic disclaimers here to avoid some kind of a random beating, so I'm going to make sure to say that I don't mean to criticize sports here. I enjoy college athletics, and even though it seems like I've really been putting it to basketball, I think basketball is probably the most entertaining college game there is. Athletics unquestionably have their place.

What I do mean to criticize is the fact that it seems that all colleges are known for anymore are their sports or their "pretty campuses." I hear all the time that "we have to pay so much attention (and in Gardner-Webb's case, go to unethical lengths) to athletics or to aesthetics because that's what is in the limelight, that's what makes the college prestigious." But MIT and Cal Tech are constantly considered to be in the Top 5 colleges in the country, solely based on their educational prowess. And so, my ultimate question is, could it be that these colleges that so desperately want to be prestigious are emphasizing the wrong thing after all?

Matt Wilson is a sophomore that writes on campus life.