<p>Well botany and landscape design … Think it thru. </p>
<p>Require gen eds of athletes. Major in athletics. It can be more academic than that. Business classes, accounting, etc. there are plenty of degrees that are simply not academic. Period. </p>
<p>Also, many value sports very highly. Very. You may not, and that’s fine, but the fact is that raising money is easier when alumni are involved. Even leagues like the ivy where there are highly academically oriented student athletes, rely on these games to bring alumni back and to build spirit. </p>
<p>As to the janitor, most schools allow the maintenance staff to take classes for free AND they pay them. Think about that for a minute. </p>
<p>Many music schools offer an Artist Diploma, separate from a Bachelors of Arts Degree. Maybe that’s what needs to be set up for revenue athletes: an Athletes Diploma.</p>
<p>After a disastrous experiment with open admissions, the City U. of NY system now has an admissions procedure in which community colleges will take anyone with a diploma. They provide remedial work until the student is ready for college work. That would work here, assuming there’s no way to make sure that a high school diploma is worth more than the paper it’s printed on.</p>
<p>Much more of a price to pay to recruit athletes for the NCAA Saturday entertainment machine than make-believe classes with make-believe cumulative grade raising courses for which students submit make-believe papers.</p>
<p>If the athletic department made academics a priority and told the “student athletes” that they were recruited to do college-level work, not just their sport and phony classes, I would think it would be in their best interest to pay attention in class and not be disruptors. If there were real academic expectations for them. I am sure that some would go for it.</p>
<p>Why even link athletics to academics? I don’t care if my plumber can debate Nietzsche. Why is everyone pretending that some of these athletes are even remotely interested in academics? </p>
<p>Just have a College of Athletics where the football players earn an Athletes Diploma instead of a Bachelors Degree. Get the NCAA to change the rules-- it’s not like the NCAA has any ethical grounding, anyway. Or just get rid of revenues sports entirely from college and start a real Minor League for football, like they have for baseball.</p>
<p>Think it through yourself. Doing something is not the same as studying something. They don’t give botany degrees for hoeing and mowing. To get a degree in landscape design, you have to design landscapes and explain your designs, not just maintain landscapes.</p>
<p>I have no problem with STUDYING sports. The problem is giving a degree for DOING sports.</p>
<p>Between 2004 and 2012, UNC admitted 34 athletes with SAT-CR less than 400. Those students can’t do college reading. They don’t have a prayer of legitimately passing whatever English gen ed requirement UNC has, because they can’t read. They don’t belong in a college classroom, because they are not students.</p>
<p>I just found out that SACs did impose penalties on UNC as follows:</p>
<p>“Forty-six current students will be given the option of taking a makeup course for free, sitting for an exam or submitting work that was done for classes that didn’t meet, if they want to graduate. Alumni will be offered a free course, though it won’t affect their degree or grades; transcripts cannot be altered after one year post-graduation, according to university policy.”</p>
<p>So many people have a vested interest in believing that an athletic scholarship is a ladder up the economic scale, and that college football and basketball have a benefit beyond pro ball. Plus it makes the diversity numbers much better for colleges.</p>
<p>Oh really? Conservatories don’t have required Music Theory classes for violin performance majors? Composition classes? Conducting classes? Pedagogy classes? Musical Literature and Musical History classes. Oh wait, yes they do. A student doesn’t get a degree just by playing the violin, however talented a violinist.</p>
<p>GMT, I am not sure why you are so critical of fine arts degrees. As for other “applied” programs such as landscape architecture, well–they are more academic than some might think.</p>
<p>Here’s an overview of the LA program at the University of Minnesota:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Tell me this isn’t something we need right now.</p>
<p>Music majors require much more than playing the instrument. Like Cardinal Fang said, courses like music theory are challenging. Since music reflects the time period and culture, required music history classes would include the history of the period. In addition to major-required classes, if a student attends a university like UNC, he/she would also be required to complete the general educational requirements which would include science, math, English and social sciences classes.</p>
<p>The athletes who attended UNC and took the sham classes still had to take classes in other subjects. I suppose that majoring in African and African American studies allowed them to use the credit for the fake classes towards their major. Some of them probably covered other requirements as well, but I doubt they covered all of them. Choosing this major is fine if the students are genuinely interested in it, but the sham classes didn’t help the students academically, and it diminished the status of the departments and the students who earned their degrees in that major legitimately. </p>
Yes, I am aware of that, but they do also get some credits for playing the instrument. If elite football are able to earn some credits for playing football well, just like violin majors are able to earn some credits for playing the violin well, then they wouldn’t need shadow courses to maintain threshold GPA.</p>
<p>Well, when you put it that way I guess I don’t disagree. Credits for lab work could be considered similar–you get the credit for accurately filling the beakers or feeding the mice or whatever (you can tell I don’t do science).</p>
<p>When I was an undergrad STEM major, I took a dance class as an liberal arts elective. There was ZERO reading, writing, research and I still got credit. I really don’t see what the difference is between that and catching a football.</p>
<p>The info on how other countries do this is interesting. I met a French student in the US at a college. He was there on a soccer scholarship. I asked him why he came here, and he replied that in his country he would have to choose between soccer and academics, and he wanted both. </p>
<p>However, I don’t think people here would accept the French system, which tracks students early on. By high school, they are directed into different careers according to placement tests- science, humanities, and some students are in technical schools. Some of these programs can be very competitive, like college is here. </p>
<p>The question may be how many of these athletes actually received degrees from UNC. Others taking the shame classes did, like the frat boys, but the athletes? Basketball players at UKentucky rarely graduate. In fact it is an issue across basketball that many players only stay in college one or two years. They register for classes to meet NCAA requirements, but don’t go, and they don’t care what the credits are in. If UNC didn’t issue diplomas, I’m a lot less concerned that the classes were blow off ones.</p>
<p>Colleges do grant credits for different subjects. Many universities have a fine arts requirement. One could get credit for that by taking a dance class, or music, drama, art. However, that would not substitute for a writing requirement. </p>
<p>UNC has broad general education requirements. I’m guessing here, but I think the players would get credit for the sport as “experiential education” . This one can be filled by practical experience in a subject, such as study abroad, internships, a fine arts project or performance. </p>
<p>However, one would still need to fulfill math, English, history and science credits. </p>
<p>Classes in the Africa and African American studies department would most likely fulfill writing, history, social sciences, literature, but they would not likely fulfill math and science. </p>
<p>So yes, the music majors do get some credit for performing, but it doesn’t replace the requirements for math, science, English or writing. </p>
<p>So, if football players were to get credit for playing football, could they still fail out? For example, violin and other performance majors usually have juries where they are judged on their playing skills. If they aren’t making satisfactory progress they can be asked to leave the school and/or major. If a football player had a bad season or a bad series of games or plays, could he fail his football course and be asked to transfer to a different major? How many bad games would he be allowed before he would be asked to leave the major or school? What if a football player had a permanent injury or longterm injury that prevented him from playing? He wouldn’t be able to get any credit for the game playing portion of his major. It seems like most people want athletic scholarships to be for four years regardless of circumstances, so I’m not sure how football as a major would go if the athlete could be asked to leave for poor performance like in some majors.</p>