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December 12, 2000 |
Contact: Elizabeth Conlisk (614) 292-3040 |
OSU enhancing academic environment for student athletes
COLUMBUS -- Ohio State is
intensifying efforts to develop student athletes who are winners in the
classroom and in the sports arena.
While the university has been cited
externally for its declining athletic graduation rates, officials have been
taking dramatic steps over the last several years to reverse those trends and
enhance the academic environment for athletes, according to Martha Garland,
vice provost and dean for undergraduate studies. The most recent statistics
released last week by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)
illustrate that overall athlete graduation rates held steady from the year
before, but football and basketball players continued to show unacceptably low
graduation rates.
Administrators have adopted a number of
proposals made by the University Senate Athletic Council and endorsed by
President William E. Kirwan to improve student athletes’ progress toward
graduation. Chief among them, and the most recent, is placing the Office of
Academic Affairs (OAA) in an oversight role in the academic support operation
for athletes. Previously, the office reported only to the athletic director.
David O. Frantz, professor of English and
last year’s Athletic Council chair, has been appointed to function as a faculty
liaison between Student Athlete Support Services and OAA. Frantz reports to
Garland in his capacity as liaison and has office space within Student Athlete
Support Services in the newly opened Younkin Success Center.
“The partnership between Athletics and
Academic Affairs provides a great opportunity to look at our population as a
subgroup to come up with solutions for the whole student body,” said Kate
Riffee, director of Student Athlete Support Services. “The connection has been
very helpful from an educational standpoint.”
Frantz agrees. “The single biggest thing
we need to work on is having student athletes make progress toward a degree
rather than just maintaining eligibility,” he said. “Then, even if people leave
early, they will be on the right track, and when they’re ready, they can finish
school.
“We also have to change the expectation
at the university. The expectation from the outset should be the attainment of
a degree,” he said.
The university already has established
academic requirements that exceed NCAA eligibility guidelines. Though the NCAA
requires scholarship athletes to enroll full-time (12 hours) in courses that
count toward graduation – including electives – the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences
require that student athletes take at least 35 hours each year that are General
Education Curriculum, major, or major prerequisite requirements.
Garland noted that certain elements of
student progress – such as concerns about the curriculum and enrollment
management issues – are most appropriately broached by a faculty liaison, in
this case a longtime OSU professor respected by colleagues and students. Frantz
has taught at Ohio State for more than three decades, is a member of the
Academy of Teaching and received a Faculty Award for Distinguished University
Service in 1997.
Frantz and Riffee were part of a July
panel that told the University Board of Trustees that reports focusing on Ohio
State student athletes’ graduation rates don’t tell the whole story. Frantz
said that, in fact, about 90 percent of student athletes who exhaust their
eligibility do graduate from the university, and in most cases, athletes’ grade
point averages match or exceed those of the rest of the student body. If the
athletes do leave, Frantz said efforts are made to ensure they leave in good
academic standing so that they may return to complete their degrees without
starting over.
As it developed proposals relating to
athletes’ academic performance, the panel visited three other institutions –
the University of Nebraska and Florida State and Penn State universities –
whose student-athlete graduation rates exceed Ohio State’s.
The panel found that challenges at Ohio
State, for both student athletes and the entire student population, include the
use of the quarter system, the nonuniformity of the General Education
Curriculum among different majors, students’ ability to drop courses late in a
quarter without penalty and, in some cases, the inability to enroll in desired
majors.
Another factor is a higher transfer rate
among Ohio State athletes who are unsatisfied with their athletic performance.
If these student athletes transfer to another institution, it counts against
the university’s athlete graduation rate. Ohio State also has more aided
athletes than any other Division I institution in the country – 502 of the
university’s 850 athletes are on scholarship. Student Athlete Support Services
employs seven full-time counselors, a life skills coordinator and manager of
study tables and tutors, six graduate student mentors working one-on-one with
athletes and about 70 tutors, proctors and computer lab monitors.
The academic performance of student
athletes has been given considerable attention at Ohio State for the past three
years. Three years ago, for the first time, athletes’ graduation rates dipped
below the overall student graduation rates at Ohio State. The trend has
continued; for the class that entered in 1993, the six-year graduation rate for
athletes was 50 percent, and for the overall student body, it was 56 percent.
The national average Division I student-athlete graduation rate is 58 percent,
according to the NCAA.
Riffee said that though many athletes’
decision to leave OSU is not related to their academic standing, the climate
for them while they’re here is a factor in their success. “Everyone who crosses
the path of a student athlete needs to have the academic mission in mind,” she
said. “We must provide an environment that’s conducive to graduation.”
In addition to creating a stronger link
between athletes and academics, the university also
is:
- Consistently measuring and advising student athletes’ progress
toward graduation, expanding the successful graduate student mentoring
program for athletes, and collaborating with writing and mathematics
centers on campus;
- Collecting data on why and when athletes leave, and continuing
an outreach program designed to bring them back to finish their degrees,
even though the effort will not count toward overall graduation rates;
- Following new admissions practices, including faculty
involvement with the director of athletics in a review of all high school
transcripts before any offers of athletic scholarships are made;
- Working with the university as a whole to define progress,
streamline the GEC, reduce closed majors, initiate summer programming, and
explore the possibility of offering a major in general studies;
- Improving the climate for athletes, changing attitudes and
expectations about academic performance, and celebrating athletes’
academic successes more visibly and vigorously.
“This is not just about numbers,” Garland
said. “If an athlete’s career is interrupted, we don’t want that interruption
to be academically fatal.
“Ohio State’s athletics program is
excellent, and we’re proud of that,” she said. “But we must not lose sight of
the need to support these athletes as students first, so they can achieve
success once they leave the university.”
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