Dartmouth may have made an easy class to help bolster athletes GPA’s, but what happened is ironic and sad! who cheats in class on common sense? I am still not sure what place athletics has on a college campus in the 21st century but along with frats… athletics need to be re evaluated to. (yes I know that may not be a popular postion with many people but, it needs to be looked at IMO)
Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen 8-|
I don’t think Dartmouth would want to relinquish its membership in the Ivy League, which is of course an athletic conference - no more, no less.
danstearns… while what you say about it being an athletic conference is true nobody yearns to go to an “ivy league” school for athletics.
but plenty want to go to a legitimate athletic conference while offering amazing fin aid and an amazing educational experience. Tell me what you’d do if you were a top scholar and also a heavily recruited hockey player? Go to N Dakota or Yale?
Your adoption of this scandal as confirmation and proof of “let’s end all athletics at Dartmouth” argument will reach its limits quickly. The Ivy league practically introduced inter-collegiate sports to America. Calling for improvement, better oversight, increased ethics is laudable. Dismantling it wholesale, for most colleges, is Quixotic.
t26e4 this embarrassing scandal at dartmouth is not the reason for eliminating sports in college, it is just another reason to discuss it. there is no reason to have sports in college it is an antiquated concept. and scholarship money could be freed up to give to deserving students. being able to run fast or toss a ball is not a reason a school should want a student. (yes, I know that auburn, alabama or ohio state will not abandon sports) but, dartmouth,yale, haverford etc…should re-elevauate sports now that we are well into the 21st century.
also…as I have said time and again the greek system should also be dismantled too imo.
I share your vision, zobroward. At our college there will be no sports, no fraternities - and what about art and music? Should a school want a student because they can pluck a string or paint a pretty picture? I think not. Only the truly deserving (those who have been coached to the highest possible SAT score) will be worthy of admittance. What a great place it will be! 
I don’t think you understand what it’s like to compete at that level of competition. Atheletes at that level work very hard. Not to mention at Ivy League schools these kids have to take on the academic challenge, while a lot of their time is already dedicated to sports. Being talented at sports is just like being talented at anything else like music or research. Also, a lot of athletes (not saying all of them) at Ivy League schools choose to go there because they are also exceptional students and understand that getting a good education is important. Many are qualified to apply to good schools without being a recruited athletes. I also imagine the other students at Dartmouth like having athletics for their own entertainment. The athletics of a college have a tendency to foster school spirit, which just by my initial impression it seems Dartmouth has a lot of school spirit. I understand this scandal is bad for the college, but I don’t think there is any reason why the banning of athletics should be considered. I respect your opinion, but I think perhaps you have a slight bias because I assume you are a highly qualified academic student, but you probably have never participated in athletics.
Regarding sports I think the Ivies get it as right as can be. They are not sports factories yet their athletes can and do complete at or near the highest levels. I think the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) gets it right, too. [For a good example, see Yale men’s hockey.]
I don’t think sports should be banned at the Ivies or at any University. To put in short hand, I am a believer in the mind / body ideal at the university. I do however have a problem with many Division I university sports teams which are in fact pro / Olympic feeder programs. I think it’s gotten out of hand. I believe these universities, even Stanford, to some degree compromise their academic mission and standing by attaching these multi-million organizations to their universities. And, most important, the athletes in these programs are often short changed by being forced to take majors which don’t require labs or which do not conflict with the very time consuming practice / travel schedules.
T26E4, since the Ivy League introduced intercollegiate sports to America, the world has changed.
In the last couple of years, we’ve seen two Ivy League institutions face large, organized cheating rings composed of athletes in gut courses. Perhaps such activities happened in the past; nowadays, however, networked computer systems produce easily searched records of plagiarism, attendance, and text and email correspondence. Thus, if it’s alleged, it can be proven.
The other change has been the advent of the “organization kid,” as David Brooks dubbed them. The era of the “gentleman’s C” passed long since, but today’s students are very serious about their studies, at least about the grades. (When was the last time you heard of a student dropping out to “find himself?” I’ve heard of students dropping out because they couldn’t keep up, but not dropping out due to a crisis of identity or meaning.)
Yes, there is the Academic Index, but perhaps that should be revisited. Is it possible for athletes within a standard deviation of the student body as a whole to keep up when the rest of the student body is not only brilliant, but hard-working and energetic? When they hit college, the students who are not athletes are no longer weighed down by the high school load of multiple activities, community service, and the rest of the college application grind. In college these students can be specialists, and they do. They may spend a lot of time on extracurriculars, but they also have the freedom to cut back on those activities as needed. Athletes don’t have that freedom.
How much time are athletes spending on team activities? Are they spending more time than 30 years ago, less, or about the same? Is it possible to raise the bar on academics and athletics at the same time? If not, how does the league adapt the rules to prevent the outbreak of mass cheating by athletes?
Periwinkle.
Your entire argument is based upon the assumed fact that athletes cheat more than regular students. Perhaps your assumption is caused by the fact that news accounts of cheating by athletes gets press coverage, while cheating by regular students doesn’t seem so news worthy. It’s sensational when a story can be shoe horned to fit a narrative. At UNC, the majority of those who took the non-classes were regular students and I believe the same was true at Harvard; the service academy cheating scandals didnt focus on athletes (should we disband the service academies?).
Do have any studies which support your hypothesis?
I believe that the SAT had to cancel scores from entire international countries due to cheating. Exactly how did athletics fit into that? Perhaps we should simply ban students from those countries?
Cheating is an issue throughout society, throughout high school, throughout college. How would disbanding athletics solve that problem?
A quick Google search reveled this.
https://web.stanford.edu/class/engr110/cheating.html; see also, http://www.bestcollegereviews.org/cheating/
Doesn’t quite fit the “athletes cheat” narrative. Perhaps we should ban business majors, high achieving students, low achieving students, etc.
Cheating is a problem. Using a sledge hammer against athletes seems to be a bit misguided.
Stemit, I’m sure the press hasn’t overlooked cheating scandals involving dozens of chess players at the Ivies. Any large cheating case receives attention in the press. The Duke business school cheating scandal was covered by the press some years ago. My argument was not that athletes cheat more–it was that first, technology makes it easier to catch student who cheat, and second, the recent large cheating scandals at the Ivies have involved athletes.
In the old days, it would have been prohibitively expensive to attempt to compare every student’s test paper in a large lecture, let alone to everything published on a topic. Now, through word processors’ search functions, web search engines, and paid services, college officials can compare papers down to the spacing of words.
It is not “using a sledge hammer against athletes” to ask if the time demands placed on the athletes by the colleges can be reconciled with the time demands of strenuous academic study.
There is no question that there will always be a race between technological advances and cheating (whether that makes it easier to cheat or be caught is an interesting subject). See, e.g.,
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-12-19/cheating-at-chess-and-other-pastimes (Article about chess, technology and cheating).
Provide a decent source of study as to why athletes should be singled out. I haven’t yet seen a study pointing to any unique cheating issues with athletes. I’ve produced two minutes worth of looking at the cheating issue - and, no mention of athletes as a particular subgroup more inclined to cheat.
I am not sure what the press covers or doesn’t cover - I feel that whatever coverage sells their product is what is published - the more sensational the better. By looking how often these athlete bashing threads come up (about every week), it appears there is a segment of the population who buys into that narrative.
You are speculating that an athlete’s work load - since his/her ability to compete academically is suspect (you propose to rework the AI) - is a direct underlying cause of athletes cheating. The studies show students wanting to get into medical school cheat, students trying to get into a good college cheat, international hopefuls cheat, students trying to remain academically eligible cheat, students trying to meet their merit scholarships cheat, students trying to meet parental expectations cheat, students under time pressure cheat, students who party cheat.
To me, the take away from the studies to date is this: when an individual’s incentives line up with cheating, the person will cheat.
In most D1 schools (the Ivy League is an exception), athletes are provided special access to academic help just for the reasons you assert (the schools recognize the incredible time commitment). At S’s school, during times of high stress academics (mid terms and finals), practices were curtailed (in season), made completely voluntary and/or timing of workouts were left to the individual athlete to decide. Does that mean the athlete will study? Some do and some don’t; just like the rest of the student population.
You also assert that non-athletes somehow have the ability to cut back on their activities while athletes don’t. It is true that athletes are incredibly committed to their sport and that they often do not have the choice to “cut back” as needed. But what about the newspaper editor; the researcher, the person organizing the school charity 5k which falls right before finals, the student who works to pay rent, etc.? I don’t think you are saying that these students can simply down their non academic activities when they have committed to those.
Athletes are a group of students who have taken an EC to the stratosphere (beginning from the time other students were in grade school and well before the manipulation of ECs to gain attention in the application process began), met the academic bar set by a particular school, and become suspect when they set foot on campus. Yet students who are “no longer weighed down” by the HS race to build a resume which is then promptly forgotten, are somehow fine - because those passions were really not passions.
While there is much to be desired in the way college athletes are treated and the priorities some colleges place on athletics (lack of food, providing the cannon fodder for schools to pay incredible amounts to certain coaches, crazy NCAA rules and inconsistent application of those rules, etc.), there is no research showing cheating is an issue correlated with, or caused by, athletics. That was the OPs underlying hypothesis.
stemit, athletics should not be removed from college campuses because athletes cheat. IMO, athletics have nothing to do with what modern college should be about. colleges need a lot of updating in the 21st century. students can play sports or work out in the on campus gym, but organized athletics like a Greek system should be phased out. this is IMO, but I think the traction is taking place on this subject.
And yet, you posted an article about a college cheating scandal involving some athletes and concluded that athletics should be removed (“reevaluated”) from all colleges. Sorry, but I assumed that the article was related in some way to your thesis. I guess now I don’t understand the purpose of citing the article.
let me reword it, it is just another reason athletics should be removed. that is fine if you do not agree but schools should evolve past athletics and greek life. feel free not to agree. we can revisit the subject in20-25 years and we will see who was on the progressive side of college evolution.
Why does “evolv[ing] past” require abandoning? This has struck me as a very useless thread, which ignores the contribution that club sports, in particular, have contributed to developing the leadership and interpersonal skills of many students. Baby and the bath water and all that. Pfft.
Didn’t these schools exist before the Ivy League designation? If so, didn’t they evolve into a sporting league situation? Perhaps it’s time to evolve out of a sporting league? This is @zobrward’s question. The standard response is to dismiss the question in the same manner that questions about Jews or Asians not being admitted to Ivy League schools are dismissed.
Most colleges would be better off without varsity sports, as would most high schools. For every high-powered college/high school sports team there are a lot of low level teams that exist just to get pounded and pad someone else’s sporting resume. For instance, look at the colleges that agree to play powerhouse teams for the fee that it commands just to give the better team a higher level scrimmage and inflate their winning record. Getting pounded by a obviously superior opponent doesn’t build character. On the contrary, it creates an antagonistic situation that could develop into a confrontational situation later on; often with destructive consequences.
I’m all in favor of sports but do it on your own dime. Colleges should not be farm systems for the various professional and/or olympic sports.
What is “just another reason athletics should be removed?” It sure appears you have drawn a straight line from athletes to cheating.
I understand that you don’t believe athletics has a place in college. You are free to have that belief. What are your reasons to eliminate an activity which fosters teamwork, goal recognition, health, communication, values functioning within a hierarchical organization, provides life long contacts/support, encourages leadership, responsibility, setting priorities, and much much more. Employers seek out varsity athletes - so participation in college athletics doesn’t seem to be an impediment to finding a home in the work force; in schools where athletic scholarships are given, college is made affordable to people who may not otherwise have the wherewithall to afford a higher education.
College campus is a collage of interests. No one forces anyone to participate as an athlete; indeed, over 90% of HS athletes (for a myriad of reasons) do not play varsity at the collegiate level. As I said before, there are major issues which need to be addressed in college sports. But as another poster noted: you appear to be advocating a baby and bath water approach.
Mene, we cross posted. I totally disagree that “getting pounded” is detrimental and doesn’t build character. Athletes are accustomed to failing; they may not enjoy it or like it, but there are times that athletes just get pounded. Winning and losing is part of their burden - often failing spectacularly. (One standard interview question S fielded was “tell me about your greatest failures?” He - and every other athlete - has three ring binders filled figuratively with massive failures.)
I understand the position that varsity athletics has no redeeming value in college. Sports apparently plays a huge role in American society - it’s entertainment and big business all rolled into one. Sports plays a huge role for young kids, middle aged kids, teens and most post-college adults. Yet, there is no room at the inn for college athletes - they should pursue their passion anywhere but college.