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| photography by Allison V. Smith |
Eleven years ago, the university of Texas at Dallas had a problem. It needed to attract better students—“brilliant students” in the words of then president Franklin Jennifer. Tim Redman, a professor of literary studies at the university, proposed a rather radical idea. Why not award academic scholarships to elite chess players? Chess players, especially the better ones, are disciplined, Redman argued, and that discipline crosses over into their academic pursuits. These wouldn’t be chess scholarships per se. But if a prospective student’s chess ranking was good enough, and his SAT scores high enough, the school would consider a general scholarship based on his ability at the board. Eleven years later, UTD has an internationally renowned chess program, and, thanks to its ever-smarter student body, other schools are following its chess scholarship lead.
Like Texas Tech. This year is the first the Red Raiders began offering academic scholarships based, in part, on chess rankings. Haruldur Karlsson is an associate professor at Tech and the chess club adviser. He says Tech, like UTD, “decided to do this because we wanted to attract quality students.” The scholarships, however, present a conundrum. “You look at these results and you go, ‘Are these kids smart because they’re playing chess, or are they playing chess because they’re smart?’” Karlsson says. The evidence that chess leads to academic success, or vice versa, is anecdotal. Even Redman, who founded UTD’s chess program and last year edited a book about the relationship between chess and education, acknowledges as much. This may be why Morehead State University dropped its chess scholarships this year. It’s also why no more than 10 schools award or have awarded them. But no one can argue with UTD’s results. The school just won the Pan Am Chess Championship, a trophy it can put next to its five national titles. The scary part is that the school’s smartest players may be its youngest. The freshmen on scholarship have an average 3.8 GPA.
