The first phase of a multimillion-dollar effort to upgrade Vanderbilt University’s athletics facilities is under way, the university announced today. The five-year, $50-million program will improve the basketball locker rooms, renovate the football stadium, and expand the baseball field, among other improvements.

Such major spending contrasts with the approach taken by E. Gordon Gee during his seven years as Vanderbilt’s chancellor, when he was a leader in collegiate-sports reform. When he announced, in 2003, what many saw as a radical overhaul of Vanderbilt’s athletics department, Mr. Gee drew admiration from some national observers of college athletics and ridicule from others, who joked that Vanderbilt athletes would share court and field time with physical-education students.

Mr. Gee, who left Vanderbilt for Ohio State University last year, attempted to integrate Commodore athletes more fully into daily campus life, by adopting such ideas as assigning athletes faculty mentors and designing a study-abroad program that more athletes could participate in. “I love college sports,” Mr. Gee told The Chronicle in 2003. “However, institutions of higher learning are in danger of being torn apart by the ‘win at all costs’ culture we have created for ourselves.”

Bobby Johnson, the head coach of Vanderbilt’s football team, said in a news release that the upgrades would help with recruiting and preparing for games.

A top administrator agreed. “When these upgrades are completed, every Vanderbilt student-athlete will enjoy a direct benefit. As well, our reputation as a national competitor in all of our sports, including basketball, baseball, and football, will also be strengthened,” said the vice chancellor for university affairs and student athletics, David Williams II. —Kate Moser