Sporting achievement

Michael Rennie's critique of your upbeat analysis of sport science was too generalised (Letters, THES , September 12).

At my institution, students may well study elements of swimming-pool management, but these underpin the business school's sport management programmes. Sport science teaching is delivered in the science faculty.

The fact that science can be applied to sport makes students no less worthy or capable. Indeed, the application of disciplines to sport has attracted people who may otherwise have been lost to science and higher education generally.

Rather than suggesting a drop in standards, the study of sport should be celebrated as a successful development at the heart of widening access.

Graham Baldwin
Dean of academic innovation
University of Central Lancashire