FACULTY ATHLETICS REPRESENTATIVE
REPORT TO THE FACULTY SENATE
David A. Dosser, Jr., Ph.D.
October 6, 2009
1. By way of introduction, let me say that I am a
professor of Marriage and Family Therapy in the Department of Child Development
and Family Relations in the
2. For those of you who may not know, the
faculty athletics representative or FAR provides oversight and advice in the
administration of the athletics program and plays a strategic role to ensure academic
integrity, institutional control of intercollegiate athletics, and enhancement
of the student-athlete experience.
The
FAR is appointed by the Chancellor for a three-year term, and I am in the first
year of my third three-year term. As
the FAR, my immediate supervisor is Provost Sheerer. The position is provided
with 50% release from teaching duties.
So I teach half-time and do FAR duties half time.
Most
importantly, I want to make clear that I DO NOT work for the
department of athletics. I am a faculty member and am paid by academic affairs.
I represent the Chancellor, the Provost, and I represent you as I oversee what
goes on in athletics and work to improve the connection between academics and athletics. You can review my report of activities that
is on the Faculty Senate web page to see what I do as FAR.
3.
This is my seventh report to this body and my fourth
as a member.
4.
In all my reports so far I have asked for
faculty members, this body, and the University Athletics Committee to become
more active in overseeing what goes on in athletics, ensuring institutional
control of athletics, ensuring academic integrity, and better integrating
athletics into the educational mission of this university. We need to continue building bridges to
further decrease distance between academics and athletics.
5.
Getting more faculty involvement here is my
message again today. All faculty and
certainly members of this body need to be informed about what is going on in
athletics. Please be curious and get
involved.
6.
Most importantly, as faculty members we cannot
contribute to the separation of athletics from academics. Each of you has a role to play. Please communicate your concerns and
questions to your representatives on the university athletics committee or to
me. Building the bridge has to be a collaborative
effort.
7.
Please also ensure that within your unit
student-athletes are treated the same as other students: no better and certainly no worse. This is the essence of academic integrity:
fairness for all.
8.
I believe that with all things considered, we are
in good shape here with our athletics program.
We have in place a process whereby faculty can and should have
sufficient input into and oversight of athletics. We already have in place a structure that
closely approximates what reformers of athletics across the country are calling
for. We just need to keep working to make
sure our process here works.
9.
I want to conclude my report today with a quick
review of how our student-athletes are doing academically. They do well for the most part, but they
could do better.
10. For
example, in terms of the APR with the exception of women’s tennis (top 10%), volleyball (top 30%)
and women’s swimming (top 40%) in the
country, the rest of our teams are in the bottom half in the country as
compared to other Division I teams. Most
of our APR problems are tied to retention and not academic performance.
11. We
are not competing as well academically in the conference as we have in the
past. Last year, ECU, with an overall average GPA of (2.863), was 5th
in the C-USA out of 12 institutions. This
year, ECU, with an overall average GPA of (2.900), is 7th out
of 12 institutions. So our GPA went up
slightly and our ranking within C-USA went down. We want to continue to compete academically
just as we do athletically in C-USA.
All of this information is on the Faculty Senate website for your review.
12. A
quick review of the report from the Academic Integrity Subcommittee, which is before
you and on the Faculty Senate website, reveals that as compared to the overall
student body at ECU our student-athletes are doing well. Please review that report for specifics. Please note that I included similar data from
two previous years for comparison. Let
me draw your attention to Part III of this report – Selected additional
recognition for academic achievements. You
can see that our student-athletes are doing well.
13. Student-athletes
continue to outperform the student body as a whole and graduate at higher rates
than the student body as can be seen in Part IV- Additional Academic
Information. Of course, graduation is
the goal. The Graduation Success Rate for
all student Athletes is 78%.
14. Please
note the impressive community service that our student-athletes have
contributed. That information is in Part
V.
15. This academic success can be attributed first to the
student-athletes, the vast majority of whom are committed to being the best
students they can be, and second to Ms. Nita Boyce and her staff in the student
development office, who do an impressive job providing academic support to
student-athletes.
16. Finally,
there have been no major problems regarding academic integrity or rules
compliance and the welfare of student-athletes has been maintained. But as faculty we need to continue our
vigilance, involvement, and concern. We all
have an essential role to play in the continued successful integration of athletics
into the overall educational mission of this university.
17. I do have some concerns:
·
I think we need to do a better job of screening
students who receive Chancellor’s Special Talent Waivers. That has been happening this year with the
implementation of new policies and procedures that require more careful
scrutiny of requests for special talent waivers from athletics including more
faculty input. We need more information
on both the academic potential and the commitment to academics of these individuals
along with their academic preparation as measured by high school GPA and test
scores. The new process is providing
that information and the review committee now makes a recommendation to the
Chancellor which he considers. Admission
decisions should be based on whether someone has a reasonable chance of
graduating and not on how good an athlete he or she is. We should not accept
athletes who do not want to be students no matter how good at their sports they
are. I hope this process will continue
and we are learning a lot in the first year of implementation.
·
The best predictor of academic success and
graduation for student-athletes is whether they identify primarily as students
or athletes. This fact is supported by
research that the NCAA has conducted. I
believe that we need to do a better job getting faculty members connected to
our student-athletes as soon as possible.
Clearly they spend a lot of time with their coaches and with the
academic support staff in athletics and with others in the department of
athletics and develop good, strong relationships with those people as they
should. I believe staff members in the
department of athletics are good role models, provide a positive influence for
our student-athletes, and are interested in the development of the whole
person. But I would like our
student-athletes to also develop good, strong relationships with faculty
members. If this were to happen more
than it does now, I believe our student-athletes would be more likely to
identify themselves as students first.
The University Athletics Committee is considering ways to implement a
faculty mentoring program for our student-athletes. This has been successful as other
institutions. I hope it will happen
here.
·
Although there have been no systemic problems
in terms of academic integrity, I continue to worry about the possibility that
individual faculty members may be doing things to help student-athletes
that bring academic integrity into
question. Please remind your faculty
members that student-athletes should be treated like any other student. Student-athletes should not get special
treatment and maintaining their eligibility is their responsibility. In fact, eligibility should never be
considered when assigning grades. Please
let me know if you or any of the faculty members that you represent ever feel
pressure to assign a grade other than the one earned by the
student-athlete. The University
Athletics Committee and I monitor very carefully what goes on with the tutors
and mentors, but no one monitors what individual faculty members do. That is my concern and I need your help.
18. Finally,
I want y’all to know that I am learning a lot about the integration of athletics
and academics nationally through my service on several national NCAA committees,
especially the Academic Cabinet. This is
the Cabinet that reviews everything in Division I that relates even indirectly to
academics. It is populated by
19. I
can say with confidence that we struggle with the same things that every other
Division I institution does and that we do better than most of them at
integrating athletics into the educational mission of the university. I think we have our Chancellor, Provost,
Athletic Director, and the members of the University Athletics Committee to
thank for our success.
20. Thank you for your attention. Are there any questions?