2008 Woodie Awards
Academic Progress weakens degrees
By: Rachael Horne
Issue date: 4/28/05 Section: Sports
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The Academic Progress Rate is the latest gimmick by the NCAA used as a public relations ploy. The Progress Rate is a graduation rate every college team must reach beginning in the 2005-06 school year or face scholarship reductions. The new legislation is expected to be approved April 29.
You could think this doesn't affect Webster since we are Division III and don't give athletic scholarships anyway. But you would be wrong.
In an effort to comply with these rates, schools will further water down courses, making it easier for their athletes to graduate with meaningless degrees.
With more pressure on sports teams to show their players are making academic progress, there will be more pressure for soft majors, fishy summer programs, extra helpful tutors and professors giving breaks. The NCAA can't keep schools from manipulating courses and bending standards. What happens at Division I and II schools trickles down to Division III and affects all students in college everywhere.
Lets face it, athletes aren't the only ones taking basket-weaving classes. While rock climbing and playing pickle ball are a fun way to knock out a few electives, do they really merit a recreation degree?
What do you do with a media communications degree or a philosophy degree? I'm not cutting down those degrees. They'll probably get a job at some big company and make more money than me as a journalist. I'm sure students leaned a lot of meaningful things in some of those classes, but does the degree you get in school even really matter anymore.
I know a guy who played Division I basketball and got a degree in something like criminal studies. So after graduation he got a job selling fertilizer for a booster sponsor with lots of money who liked the way he played. He hated his job even though it had its perks. Yes fertilizer did have its perks, like a nice paycheck and a company car. All for being a good ball player. Now he's back in school working on a degree in education and coaching a high school basketball team, something I'm sure he is much more qualified to do considering the amount of time he put into the sport over so many years.
I don't know the reasons for the original degree but perhaps it was suggested as a degree that would be easy to obtain while putting so many hours into basketball.
Maybe Bill McClellan a columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had it right. He was a guest speaker in one of my classes and talked about his days at Arizona State University 30 years ago. He spoke of his campaign at the student newspaper to allow athletes to major in sports, saying they put more time into their sport than most students put into academics.
Some criticize the term "student athlete" saying no one on college campuses ever talk about "student actors" or "student musicians" but what's different is that those students do actually major in theater or music.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm pretty sure it's not in Academic Progress Rates. It's just one more example of how a degree is losing it's luster. Along with more and more emphasis on graduate programs at schools like Webster and more and more emphasis on research and athletics at other schools, a degree will be as useful as that class on the philosophy of "Star Trek."