Historically, the design of academic support programs in college athletics has been more about responding to crisis than operating from a sound and proactive philosophical perspective. For example:
A: YES. There is a serious racial component to the issue of academic exploitation of Division I football and basketball players in particular. The research data regarding the black male football and basketball players in Division I are very clear. The following data covering 2007 to 2010 (Harper, Williams and Blackman, 2013) revealed:
A: NO. Special admissions serve many laudable functions on college campuses.
In response to the recent athletics academic fraud scandal at the University of North Carolina, The Drake Group issued the following position paper. The Drake Group is a national organization of faculty and others whose mission is to defend academic integrity in higher education from the corrosive aspects of commercialized college sports. Drake Group goals include: (1) ensure that universities provide accountability of trustees, administrators, and faculty by publicly disclosing information about the quality of educations college athletes receive; (2) advance proposals that ensu
A: Student-athletes who are ‘at-risk’ academically need to be surrounded with an academic support system that (a) provides more structure to study time and academic preparation, (b) enables closer oversight of academic responsibilities and achievements in order to catch problems early and reward successes, (c) provides assessments that may identify underlying learning disabilities or learning skill challenges and (d) surrounds the student-athlete with positive people who are confident in their ability to succeed in the classroom. Following are practices that address these
A: While there is no one ‘right’ composition for the Board or Committee that serves in an athletics program oversight and policy approval role, following are important considerations: