should they ban atheltics at dartmouth?

@menefrega and @zobroward, When it comes to choosing a college, there are choices, which is great. I can respect your desire to learn in an environment devoid of athletics and fraternties. Several universities share that vision. Among them are Drew University, Ramapo College of New Jersey, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) and the University of Mary Washington (VA).

As zobroward said, we can revisit this in 25 years and see if the Harvard/Princeton/Stanford model endures - or if Ramapo College will be the new standard against which all others are judged.

Our family has benefited from the system of D1 athletics, both Ivy and non-Ivy.

Yet I am aware that college athletics in the US is the sole exception, far from the rule, internationally. College age athletes in other countries participate in club sports, not affiliated with their institution of higher learning. (Cambridge-Oxford rowing may be a distinction, not sure of the official status of that)

I can see arguments on both sides. The US model is the outlier here, and clearly other models can produce positive results.

fenwaypark…IMO there really is no reason a school should have scholarships for tennis,golf, cross country etc… if a wealthy school like dartmouth has money to spare ok (not for me to tell them how to spend money) but, I personally would much prefer schools spend the money on academic scholarships for really smart kids who need that break to actually go to college. (hopefully those students would some day pay it forward if they become successful by giving money back to the school that helped them out) . I am not so foolish as to think u of louisville, oklahoma albama, ohio state or aurburn will abandon football or basketball but that may change too someday. I feel the ivies and similar such schools may be the place to start to dismantle the antiquated concept of collegiate sports.

As I said, I see the arguments on both sides.

But lets get a few facts straight.

  1. Ivies do not issue scholarships for any sports
  2. Ivies do not provide academic scholarships (just need-based)

It is possible, I do not know, that the money spent by Ivies on athletics is paid for…or returns a surplus…in terms of donations, license fees, ticket sales and other revenue sources.

Lol albama and aurburn…

Why ban athletics I really don’t understand this question at all…The kids who choose to cheat are victims of their own flawed ideologies, and the fact that that notion even entered the kids’ minds is extremely troubling yet has nothing to do with the College itself.

IMHO, the actual problem is that this professor created a course aimed at athletes who–in his view–couldn’t cut it in regular classes. The fact that he also seemed to give credit based on attendance is also disturbing. This isn’t HS.

@‌zobroward

Lumping athletes into a group that involves academic dishonesty, lack of academic rigor, etc is an ignorant statement. I think you need take some time to reflect on your motives for such a discussion. Is it truly about the athletics? Whatever the reason, athletics are here to stay in society. Often, athletics develop a moral code and mental “toughness” that is not developed in a classroom. Plenty of students enjoy pushing their bodies to physical and mental extremes.

But why stop at the collegiate level? Let’s abandon the concept of sports altogether, since they clearly do not serve a purpose in modern society. Let us all hold hands, discuss poetry, and worry solely about our SAT scores.

Source: I’m a recruited Ivy league athlete, still one of the top academic students in the country.

Lol @zobroward. Some may want to know their facts before riding a high horse.

Lmao, @PurePhysics‌ . Youre not totally wrong about all of that, but your point seems to be based on the fact “I’m smart and an athelete so most atheletes are.” The problem isnt’t that every athlete is dumb, the problem is that some get away with ignoring academics and still graduate from schools like that because professors let them slide. There is absolutely no need to remove sports; however, they should be held to the same standards as everyone else. Does it make sense that the average GPA and SAT scores(Yea, SATs arent a great measure, but thats how things go) are noticibly(see multiple houndred points) lower for athletes than non athletic students? Seems a bit unfair. But to your point, they do it for URMs and the opposite for ORMs and such so why not do it for athletes too? Although URM and ORMs rarely get the treatment after admissions, atheletes seem to always be in the news for it.

Sports can productive and fun, but do they help further society? Not directly besides for entertainment at least while academics/relevant research can.

Also, you do realize youre not some insanely talented student, right? You have no college classes outside of math and only 10 or so of those, a non 4.0 GPA, middle of the road SAT score, no major awards (ISEF finalist is pretty good I guess) and a single published research paper(looks like you had help with all of those eh?). Not to say those arent great, but you’re not Terrence Tao, and by the way you talk, you seem to think you are. Step off your high horse and realize that you’re not above everyone else.

Also, sorry for spelling and punctuation. I am on my phone and it is hard to to type on it.

Source: Current ivy league student that played soccer while in highschool and definitely isn’t a dumb student(by grades at least).

In the Dartmouth case the OP posted, who is at fault? Do you blame the athletes and the sport or the athletic department and/or coaches? One bad coach does not make all athletics bad.

Just to be clear - this particular case apparently involved students in a large lecture hall that had allegedly started “clicking” each other in for attendance purposes -the 21st century equivalent of saying “here”, for a friend during roll call. (not that I would ever have done such a thing.)

One wonders if the professor, who so generously designed a class for “athletes that may have difficulty with an Ivy League workload”, had an inkling that this might happen. The headline “Dartmouth College accuses dozens of students of cheating in Sports, ETHICS and religion class” certainly has nice ironic touch to it