I enjoyed the graduation rate for athletes article. Being a collegiate athlete I agree with the fact that the "dumb jock" is a myth. I felt when I was involved in athletics, it gave me more focus, a reason to succeed in the classroom, as well as a support system to help me succeed on and off the court. Granted, there are always going to be athletes that are not concerned at all with academics, I think for the most part, athletics is a way for some individuals to continue their education. It offers financial assistance, making an education more accessable. Many student athletes utilize that assistance and make the most out of their academic experience.
The conflict of interest article came very timely with class. I think that after reading the implications of oil companies contributing to collegiate "research" can be viewed as a conflict of interest. Dr Miller stated that if it looks suspicious, even if it is not, then don't do it. In this case, oil companies are being viewed as "buying" universities and controlling their research, or creating these investments to gain a better public image. The contribution to the universities is probably for research purposes, but its seemed that the article expressed that the companies are ot doing much with the green research. It just looks like they are trying to go green, but not actually implimenting any changes. That is an ethical issue as well as a conflict of interest.
I feel a since of pride when reading the article on atheletic graduate rates. I know in high school and in college atheletes had a bad rep. of not doing well academicly. I find it quirky as well that student athlletes wouldnt do well, sure those that have full scholorships dont have to worry about the financial constraints non athletes have to deal with, but they do have other worries such as expectations and keeping their grades up so they can contiue to do what they like to do to get their education. There are many reasons why some students do well and/or dont do well. What is something as aspiring student affairs proffesionals can we develop in collaboration with academic affairs can we do to ensure that everyone has a chance to do well?
After reading the “Big Oil Goes to College” article, I can truly understand why there is a conflict of interest occurring. It baffles me to know that according to the article, “major oil companies are currently investing little of their considerable profits in clean-energy research and development within their companies.” I’m baffled because one of the major current trends within universities and corporations is being sustainable and here you have over 10 major universities and global enterprises being environmentally irresponsible and undergoing unethical practices. I learned as an undergrad finance major that being environmentally responsible to a major aspect of being sustainable. Reading this article is a contradiction to the progression that American universities and global enterprises are trying to achieve, thus resulting in a major conflict of interest.
Reading the article about scholarship athletes having a higher graduation rate than those who are not athletes really means a lot to me. Me being a Division I track and field athlete here at USF, I have always been categorized as the typical “dumb-jock.” I feel completely disgusted whenever someone who is not an athlete says that because they do not have no idea of what we as athletes have to go through. People fail to realize the amount of pressure that athletics are under in order to maintain a high academic standard as well as perform at a high level for their university. In Division I athletics, athletes are required to take a minimum of 12 credits per semester, maintain the required GPA per semester, and meet a certain number of credits per year in order to be eligible to participate in any athletic functions, both practices and competitions. In addition to trying to maintain a level of academic security, athletes have to do this while enduring over 20 hours of practice and meeting times a week, weekly competition that includes traveling all over the country on, and any other obligations in their lives. I personally think that the life of an athlete is more vigorous than the normal collegiate student because of all the pressures and time constraints we are under. To know that athletes are graduating at a higher rate than those who are not athletes really proves that we are not “dumb-jocks” and I can only hope that the negative stereotype becomes a distant memory.
Second, I found the “Graduation Rates for Scholarship Athletes” article pretty interesting. I am not surprised to see that athletes do well academically because it is a requirement to maintain decent grades if you would like to stay involved in athletics. Throughout my academic career there were always two kinds of athletes: the ones that took academics seriously, and the ones that did not. The ones that did not do well learned the hard way and had to either bring up the grades or be booted. The sad part is that athletes in high school and college received special treatment for missing class and a lengthier time to complete assignments while other clubs and organizations who were also doing great things for the schools were not treated so well. I feel as though everyone who participates in extracurricular activities that represents the school whether at athletic games, organizational conferences or theatre to name a few, should be given the same considerations.
The Wesley e-mail article grabbed my attention immediately. After reading the mining comment, I had my doubts about the professionalism of this student affairs individual. But when it was revealed that it was Wesley's Director of Advisement, I could not be more dejected. Here is an individual, claiming to be a professional, serving the interests of the students, yet making such tactless comments and distributing them so carelessly. Those students probably have a lawsuit in their hands, despite their GPAs being low enough for dismissal.
1. Even though it is great that many student-athletes are graduating, there are still 29 teams that did not graduate a single player. What can be done to help those students? The article did not go into details about any special circumstances that may explain the zero graduation-success rate, but to have 29 teams of varying sizes not graduate a single individual is concerning. Even more concerning is that these teams were from 27 schools, so at least 1 institution is unable to graduate students from more than one team. This institution may need to re-evaluate how they are managing their academics.
2. The Wesley incident is really disturbing, and the implied email phrasing from the article brings up the ethical issues we discussed in class this week. The students named in that email were not being treated with respect or care. It makes the institution and individuals look very bad and has surely made other students wonder what else is said behind closed doors. The issue of student privacy & technology was also raised in another article in the Chronicle this week regarding Dartmouth and Cornell releasing the names and contact information of students who did not make financial donations to the school as seniors. Both articles make you wonder if students really understand what laws exist regarding their privacy, etc.
No matter how these major-oil companies and universities try to explain themselves in this matter, there is a conflict of interest taking place. These oil companies are giving out multi-million dollar donations to these institutions. It wouldn’t be surprising if the institutions owed them a favor in return. For me, the issue is that the donation may have been done to benefit the company rather than benefitting higher education. Like a ring being pawned for a certain price, the resources that these institutions have to conduct research for gas emissions and such have been pawned for a hefty price…
Reading the article on college athletes graduating at higher rates brought in great insight about the issue. During my senior year of college, I was able to see a number of student-athletes be honored for their academic achievements. However, I did notice that very few of them played the high profile sports like football, basketball and baseball. A possibility behind this fact is that there is added pressure to perform well in these sports. When you have screaming fans, media and overall excitement among the atmosphere of the game, more focus may be put on the sport rather than academics. Who knows? Regardless, one thing to note is that many athletic programs have strong academic support services which do help student-athletes succeed. As long as student-athletes are doing their part and receiving t he support needed, the stats will continue to soar…
During undergrad, I did notice my financial aid package rise as the tuition rise also. Schools do make an effort to benefit students in that way. The issue, however, is that if tuition continues to go up, will there be enough funding to help students fund their education? More and more students are carrying huge debt loads, and that shouldn’t be the case when most students are entering fields that do benefit society, economy and the like. Hopefully, universities will be able to figure out how to make tuition more cost-effective…
Great job Chance tying in the article "Big Oil goes to college: a conflict of interest?" into what we just talked about in class on Wednesday. I completely agree with Corey in the instance that I feel the institutions will probably feel like they owe the companies something in return in the future. The article states that for $50 million a year, an oil company would buy a portion of "America's premier public research institutions" turning them into their own profit. This makes you wonder if USF would fall into the category of a research institution and allow oil companies to purchase portions of the campus, with all of the going green talk it would not be a surprise to me.
The Graduation rates of student athletes article I found shocking, I did not think that athletes was very high. My opinion of college athletes, and yes this may be cynical but I always thought that many athletes went to college to play sports to get drafted to the professional leagues and then did not finish college. It is enlightening to see that 79% of them are completing their degrees. Although, many of them have strong support systems throughout the process because they have to maintain certain GPA's and are not taking such strenuating classes. (i.e. molecular biology)
Athletes give up their ferpa rights and also have to follow a lot more rules and regulations. Such as having curfews and not being allowed to do particular activities that many other college students partake in.
I agree with Huda's comment about the student affairs professional and the email she sent out about a dozen students. As she was sitting there thinking about who to send them email to, and inputting each individuals email address did she not realize the breach of privacy? This almost makes me want to reach through my computer screen and shake her. I understand that commonsense and being smart rarely come in the same package for a lot of people, but as a student affairs professional and a dean of students you should be setting the example to those below you. That should be a mistake that you simply do not make.
I was shocked to read about the email sent to all students at Wesley College with the names of students who were at risk of being kicked out because of poor grades. Even though the school had a limited number of individuals with the access to email the entire student body, the mistake was still made. I think the suggestion in the article about having another administrator look over an email being sent to all students is one way to help prevent this from happening again. Perhaps she and many others could just slow down and double check the message and who it is being sent to before pressing the send button. Like Emily, I also saw the article about Dartmouth and Cornell student volunteers passing around the names of seniors who didn’t donate to the school. Here is the link if anyone is interested: http://chronicle.com/article/Students-at-2-Ivy-League/125056/?sid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en
It was frustrating to read in the “Big Oil goes to college” article that these large oil companies are limiting academic independence and may only be donating funds to portray a “green” image. There will always be limits to what can and cannot be researched because of funding, but when the donor controls so many aspects of the research it isn’t fair there is a conflict of interest. If a company wants to have that much control, they could do the research in their own facilities.
I enjoyed reading the article on student athletes. I'm interested in learning about which universities these stats came from. I also think it would be beneficial to learn how the athletic academic advising staff/administrators run their operations. There are increasing demands and high expectations on student athletes and it's important that they utilize the services that are available to them. In addition it's important that employees in athletics advocate for academic success. A coach caring about an athletes grades verses just his/her athletic performance can make a difference.
I literally had to shake my head after reading the to the Wesley College article. I completely understand mistakes, BUT when you are dealing with sensitive information giving your undivided attention to it is important. There were 18 students in danger of failing, 18 students! These notifications could have been delivered directly to the students. This is just another example of the misuse of technology and the implications for this misuse are potentially dangerous.
The article "E-mail Goes too Wide at Wesley" is frightening. I'm sure all of us have made a similar error before by sending a text message to the wrong person or like in the article, sending an email to someone we had not intended to send it to. While technology has made communication faster and easier, it also makes it easier for information to get into the hands of the wrong people. I liked the idea presented toward the end of the article that the campus is considering having a requirement of a second administrator sign off on an email before it is sent out campus wide. This could prevent similar future occurrences.
"As College Fees Climb, Aid Does Too" was also interesting to me. An 8% increase in four-year public institution tuition is a pretty big jump. And if this trend continues, already high tuition rates will be astronomical before long. As mentioned in the article, I don't see financial aid disbursements continuing to increase at the same rate as tuition. Terry Hartle also raised an important point when she mentioned how students who are not eligible for financial aid will really feel the pain of rising tuition rates. These students may be forced to take out loans to make up for the difference and put themselves at a financial disadvantage by the time they graduate. It was interesting that the article mentioned finding a way to use technology to make higher education cheaper as many of our conversations have revolved around technology lately. I wonder if such developments will cost us our campus communities though and vastly change the face of colleges and universities.
The article discussing college athletes and their GPA’s hopefully brings some light to people about student athletes. The sad thing is that there is a stereotype that goes with student athletes. The idea that student athletes are dumb and get special privileges because of their relation to athletics. But, that is something that throughout time college athletes are going to have to just prove is a wrong perception of them. Just like Greeks have the stereotype of being partiers and always drinking alcohol. That is something that is not true, but that is the stereotype. Colleges are full of generalizations, but it is just up to the individuals in that group to do what they can to shine some light on who they truly are. Hopefully this article along with others will show people the truth behind college athletes.
The “E-mail goes too wide at Wesley” article shows just how big a mistake can go. The fact that the email went out to thousands of students showing other student’s grades is not good, and the fact that the comments about the Chilean miners are in there does not help the cause. FERPA is something to take seriously and I do not know exactly what the next moves are for the college. In the article it said that funding is one way to be penalized for breaking FERPA rules, and I do not know if this was that major of an infraction to get funding taken away. But, I hope that the Dean of Students personally apologizes to the students that were affected by this incident. I can only think of how embarrassing it is for them for all their peers to see their grades and read the comments of professional faculty about them.
I, like many others, was intrigued by the graduation rates of college athletes. I agree with many of you that athletes have strenuous schedules and commitments beyond their academics but they also have a larger support system than the average non athlete student. What if all students were given that much support or incentives such as scholarships, elligibility to particicpate in their favorite past time, or other factors that can intrinsically motivate student athletes? Would all graduation rates be higher? Also, the US Department of Education rates don't include the benefit of counting students who transfer schools and their degree completion towards the graduation rate. If the national average was calculated with this as a factor, would student athletes still out perform all students when it comes to graduation rates?
I also was shocked by the breech of personal information and security at Wesley College. I know people make mistakes like sending an email or text message to the wrong person and I understand how it happens. What stuck me as a good idea was how BYU and Campbell have a policy where they do not discuss student grades over email. This is a good practie everywhere but especially good in Florida where the Sunshine Law can expose any information that was written over email by requesting it. One of our presenters talked about how they use student initials if they must email about a situation and this is a great thing to think about as we continue to interact with students and learn personal details that are protected by FERPA.
As I read the article about the FERPA issues a Wesley University, the first thing I thought is how is this possible. At USF professors are not even allowed to send grades of any sort through email due to the fact that information put in emails is public information. I also thought that this was a nation wide concept and also applied to professors sending this information to students and other officials on campus. I am sure there is a reason as to why sending grades, GPA, etc are not allowed to be sent over email, and this mishap is why it is enforced by some institutions. I think it is very interesting that this institutions risks loosing funding and they don't seem to be bothered by that at all!
With regard to the Wesley College email situation, I am reminded of the saying that an offense is sometimes made worse by the explanation. Mr. Olsen, who wrote the original message, is clearly in need of sensitivity training and deep reflection about his communication choices. Regardless of the “handful” of “intended” recipients having access to this message, he was NOT looking out for the best interest of the students. Mr. Olsen was clearly making an insensitive mockery of the academic struggles of students whom he has chosen to serve professionally. He claims that his communication choices in the email reflect his “colorful” style and personality. Regardless of his intent to have this message viewed only by colleagues, Mr. Olsen was wrong to express these unfortunate grades in such a crude manner. This was a written correspondence, which allowed opportunity for review and consideration before sending. A solution has been determined to prevent future “mistakes” from occurring when sending emails to multiple recipients. Mr. Olsen needs a safeguard established to help him consider his “colorful” communication choices. Mr. Olsen was clearly the spark that lit the fuse which led to his unfortunate explosion.
Wow. The FERPA article really stuck out to me. It’s a shame that something like that had to happen but it is understandable how a mistake like that can happen. Technology is growing stronger every day and careless mistakes such as these are bound to happen, especially with emails. This has happened to me before where I have sent the wrong email to the wrong person and didn’t realize it until that person emailed me back. Last week in class we this was mentioned. When I was an RA I knew that students had certain rights to privacy when it came to parents but I did not know to what extent. One time, during move out, a parent called the duty phone (and I just happened to be on duty) and asked me what her daughter’s room number was because she was not answering her phone and they have been waiting for her for over a half hour. I, of course could not give out that information, and the situation escalated and the hall director had to be called. Many parents don’t know about FERPA, and many staff members are not aware of the extent of privacy that students have. This is something that is mentioned at training but not in depth and I think it should be because any small careless mistake can lead to a more critical situation.
Stories about college athlete graduation rates have been showing up in the news rather frequently lately, so the selection of this article is not all that surprising. I also wasn't too surprised to hear that the rates are as high as they are. Though athletes do have tough schedules and numerous commitments, as Becca pointed out, almost all of these students have a considerably larger support system than the average student. Resources like tutors and student support centers are available for use by student athletes that are not available to non-athletes, some of whom are just as busy. Things are never going to be fair or equal, but I don't think it's fair to praise all athletes for graduating at higher rates when they are offered such advantages. I would be interested to see what academics and advising are like at the institutions that do not graduate athletes at such high rates.
The article "As College Fees Rise, Aid Does Too," was encouraging. Especially now that many students struggle to afford college, the raise in aid is so important. I was a little surprised to read that there was more government aid available to students, though it is not unwelcome. The priority now should be to come up with a solution for keeping costs from rising at their current rate, of over 5% a year, in order to keep this issue from impacting future students even more.
Like everyone I was shocked by the email that went out to the students at Wesley! I can not believe that first the academic advisor would write such things about their students. Especially the Chile comment! I understand that this was a mistake, but why was this information sent over email in the first place? Like CJ said FERPA is something to be taken very seriously, and I do not think they were doing this at Wesley!
I also read the article on the athletes graduation rate. Like Caitlin stated above, it is not surprising to me that they have a higher graduation rate because of the extra resources. Not only do they have the tutoring centers, but they are also on scholarships so they may not have the same finical pressure that other students have that may cause them to drop out of school.
Like many of you have said, the email sent out at Wesley is appalling. I agree that, when sending numerous emails at once, it gets tricky making sure all get to the right group. A click of the wrong listserve or contact list easily sent that email far and wide. However, perhaps an equally concerning issue is the “colorful” language used in the email. I agree with Mark that this did not demonstrate a genuine concern for the students. While individuals’ personalities may help build community in the workplace, these comments said via email were unnecessary. The students’ GPAs were indicative enough of their academic struggles. While the email was only meant for a handful of advisors, it was posted to the internet regardless. We teach first year students to watch what they post on the internet. While the intentions were harmless, this individual must consider his professional appearance, especially as a director of advisement. It will be interesting to see what kind of disciplinary action is taken, if any.
I found the article about rising tuition costs being offset by rising financial aid to be encouraging. However, this has been a development for students only in recent years. Sandy Baum called it an “aberration,” which seems appropriate. Financial aid will not always be able to increase with tuition, which leaves the bigger issue to be increasing tuition. Like Andrea, I also found it interesting that the article ended with thoughts of how to use technology to make education cheaper. Does this mean more online classes? More “digital” events, such as the career center’s recent online career fair? We’ll have to see if this is the next report they come out with.
I was interested in the article on athlete graduation rates. I found that the comments below the article show some interesting thoughts. Several of the comments say that the athletes have more time and fewer money problems than a student would have if they were working. After spending time with some athletes and seeing the practice and travel requirements, this is hard to understand. For sports like basketball and baseball (which have some of the lower graduation rates) they are out of town 2-4 days per week during the season. Travel is never conducive to studying and it has to have a negative effect on classroom attendance as well. As Greg pointed out, athletes face pressures that most of us will not face in college. Besides the practice time, grades, year round training, travel and student responsibilities, they have to perform to maintain the scholarship. Taking a look at the link that showed the 10 highest and ten lowest performing schools, I saw that the athletic rates were reflective of the university rates. Without seeing all the numbers, you could assume that graduation is as much a reflection of the school in general rather than just the athletes. For the schools like Kentucky or Connecticut, the grad rates will likely change when they become priorities for the schools. Those coaches aren’t paid millions to worry about the academics for their athletes. For UK, they put four guys in the pros last year alone. Although this will ruin grad rates for the team, it certainly shows that the school prepared the students for very lucrative careers in their chosen profession.
Considering the amount of federal dollars going to private schools, I would expect to hear more complaints about it. At the state level, the idea of charter schools receiving aid that would otherwise go to public schools is a hot topic every year. Private colleges, including those run by religious organizations, receive federal and state money each year through Pell, Bright Futures and student loans. I know that the federal money going to the for-profits is under scrutiny, but it is interesting to me that this other issue is untouched. It was good to see in the article that the net cost for low income students has actually decreased over the last 5 years. I was shocked that such a low percentage of aid is need based and would expect that to keep changing as state programs like Florida’s Bright Futures and Georgia’s Hope continue to see cuts in their aid. What is also part of the discussion, although not in this article, is that we should expect to see loans also increasing as costs increase. As we have all learned, tuition is not the only measure of the expense of college. Schools have to look at additional ways to pass some costs along to students via fees and other add-ons. We learned last week that medical insurance may be the next add-on here at USF, and we should keep looking for these each year. We cannot count on federal spending to stay at the current level for long.
I am glad that the athletes graduating rates has been published for people to see. That sterotype is old and outdated and it needs to stop. It is so easy for people who are not athletes to look at athletes and think oh they have it so easy which is completly not the case. I was not a college athlete but I can only imagine how had it would be to balance academics and athletics and its nice to see athletes succeed on and off the court/field.
I also agree with really everyone who commented on the Wesley case. I am not sure if the unversity does not deal with failing students very often but addressing the issue the way they did even to each other or what was meant to be each other was just inappropiate. I also do not agree with the way the dean tried to back it up saying everyone uses a different personality to get the point across. There is a professional way to go about things no matter what you personality and that was not correct. I hope all schools learn from this and I really do feel back for the students but at least their names were not mentioned in the article to bring about further embarressment.
I thought the article that Huda posted "As College Fees Rise, Aid Does Too" interesting because I work in financial aid right now and see first hand the great amount of grants, scholarships, and financial aid we hand out to students. I don't think there is a standing problem of students not being able to afford school anymore, which is good. On the other hand, I find it very scary how much debt students are leaving with out of college. The article didn't really touch on that topic, but I think it is going to become a big issue soon because students are not going to be able to repay all their debt.
I also thought that the article that Chance posted about college athletes graduating at a fast rate was interesting because I didn't realize this was happening. I assumed athletes would have focused more on their sports than academics. However, now most colleges are really focusing on the "student athlete" prospective. This prospective is where school work comes first and athletics comes second. Also, athletes are really taken care of at colleges and universities. They have advisors and their grades are constantly being checked. I'm glad most athletic programs at colleges have a higher graduation rate, but it is still not that much of a difference between non-athlete students attending colleges who are not constantly being checked on and motivating themselves.
In regards to the College Athletes article, I am very impressed with college athletes today. I sometimes buy in to the stereo type that college athletes don’t do as well academically, but I have been proved wrong. I think that college athletes have the incentive to do better academically to continue playing for the school. I also know advisors carefully look at athlete’s academic progress and grades, and they can help give them an extra push to keep them performing well academically. Emails have always been a source for instant massive exchange of information. I’m not surprised that this happened. However, I am surprised that the school administrator was not careful to make sure the information was sent to the proper places. If something like this slipped, it leads one to believe that grades are a common exchange over email at Wesley. I guess they will have a fun time with damage control at this point.
Reading the article, “As College Fees Climb, Aid Does Too,” I hoped that the article would shed some light on the reasons behind the yearly incremental increases. It was encouraging to see that financial aid awards continued to rise at the same time, but at what point will the aid slow down and not meet the rate of tuition increase? And like the article points out, “…very few families are seeing their income go up 8 percent this year.” As Megan pointed out, the debt students accumulate during their undergraduate years will be an issue complete on its own. The enormous debt of our generation will likely show reparation for future students and their ability to receive aid.
The article about the Wesley email is wrong on so many levels. To have the originator of the mail defend his statements as "that is my personality" and that he was trying to make it seem serious by joking about it I believe is just a last ditch effort to cover himself in the situation. I think using initials or moving to a policy of only discussing topics as sensitive as this over the phone would be a good decision on the part of many universities. Even though the email was recalled and only a handful of students actually ready it, we all know the students who did read it probably have printed and forwarded it out. My heart goes out to these students who obviously have been embarassed by this email and I would assume that they are no longer a part of the unversity by their own choice now.
The other article that struck me was the possible conflict of interest between oil companies and university research institutions. What a struggle this has to be on so many levels with budgets being cut because of state aid - how could a university turn down any money from a company if they were concerned about a conflict of interest? And where does a university even begin to look for money from any company as any of these relationships could potentially become a conflict of interest when it comes to programs or research projects. I would definitely enjoy reading the full report on this to see the details of how much influence the board does exert over the research that is being conducted. With state aid continuing to be cut, I have a feeling this topic will remain at the forefront for many years.
The first thing I thought when I read "College athletes graduate at higher rates than non-athletes" and "Rising tuition costs associated with increased financial aid" was "Yea right."
I don't know much about student-athletes except that they received more attention on my college campus than seemingly any other people there. I remember when they tightened up the requirements and I was glad about that. I'd like to see more data/information.
Some of the info in the financial aid article rang a personal bell.
“When you look at how much students are actually paying, on average, it is lower, after adjusting for inflation, than five years earlier.”
This sounds like malarkey to me. There is no doubt that an education is more expensive today than ever before, and it's getting more so.
"The good news is that Pell grants will cushion the increases for low-income students, but if you’re not eligible for financial aid, it’s a problem, since very few families are seeing their income go up 8 percent this year.”
I can personally relate to this. Coming from a middle class family, I knew I wasn't ever going to qualify for financial aid. But this isn't because I didn't need it. So I relied on academics to get me the most money to the best school possible. Many of the (need-based) grants/full scholarships etc...are based on lower- and lower-middle class salary brackets while the merit-based aid is dependent upon very extraordinary academic performance. This leaves a lot of students "in the middle" to find their own way/fend for themselves.
“We have to figure out how to educate students in a more cost-efficient way,” Ms. Baum said. “We haven’t yet figured out how to use technology to make it cheaper. But we will.”
These implications for future practice frighten me. This increased reliance on technology, I'm not too sure about. I'm down for making education more cost-efficient, but I fear more people looking to technology as a panacea for educational issues.
"Graduation Rates for Scholarship Athletes" is an interesting article. It doesn't shock me that 79% of student athletes at Division I schools graduate within six years - in fact, I'm quite impressed as I would have guessed that figure to be in the 60% range. What I found most interesting, however, is that the sports that struggle the most are football, basketball, and baseball. I would venture to guess that these are the most demanding of the major college sports, although Greg, Ashley, and Clara might disagree. So instead, I'll make a different point... These are the sports that have the greatest potential for future success. So many athletes come to college now to succeed in the NFL, NBA, or MLB. Could it be that some of these athletes truly believe they'll make it to the professional leagues and simply don't care enough about academics to try very hard?
Ok - this Wesley email story is ridiculous. Here's the last sentence of the story... "Olsen said he sent the message to provide academic help for students with grade point averages under 1.00." You know what doesn't sound like academic help to me? "The hole she has dug is deeper than the mine shaft in Chile."
That is absolutely unacceptable. Dr. Miller talked about how professionals will talk with one another about students, saying that there are just certain things he wouldn't tell Dr. Henry, adding that she would find out on her own someday. Olsen should have done the same. It is one thing to say, "these students are struggling and we need to provide support" and a totally different story to ridicule or even compare the situation in a satirical way. The fact that the email got out just magnifies the mistakes that were made in this case.
I was really impressed with the graduation rates of student athletes! I know that they have added pressures with practice, trainings, travel etc. so to know their studies are still priority is encouraging. It also shows that most student athletes do have valuable resources at their disposal such as advisors and tutoring and they are taking advantage of those.
Ok, I understand the concern about the Wesley article but I cannot say that I am outraged. While I do think it was a bonehead move by the dean to send the e-mail to students I think the original intent of the e-mail was pure. I think in this day and age you have to be very careful what you put into writing at ANY time, and I do think FERPA should be taken very seriously. At the same time I think that this advisor is showing a actual concern for the students' academic struggles, otherwise he would not have e-mailed in the first place. I think he could have chosen his words more carefully but still think his intent to genrate a reaction from other advisors about the severity of the situation is ok.
I could not agree more with Ryan and Labs about the college athletes article. If they did not account for the prospects of the students leaving for the professional leagues than clearly they need to add another variable to the study. Late in the article it mentions low graduation rates among men's basketball players from the University of Connecticut. I couldn't help but make the connection between this program and the pros. Another thought that I had when reading the article is that we could use it for our research study (if it was peer refereed). It shows the direct correlation between involvement and student success.
Next I read the FERPA article cited by Huda. It seems too unreal to be true, the email was really titled "please see the hit parade below: ARE ANY OURS?" But you are correct Huda, this definitely shows the inevitable mistakes that lead to a breach of FERPA. I wonder if the sunshine laws have any censor that protects college student identity that relates to FERPA. After doing a little research I found that Ohio has an edit to FERPA in its version of the sunshine laws that allows it to override FERPA, at least according to Bowling Green.
I was very tickled by the scholarship athletes graduation rate article. I have been following UofL sports since I was young and of course my parents love to discuss the sports teams and players all the time. I remember back in the mid 90's UofL had a horrible graduation rate for it's athletes particularly the mens basketball team. However, when Rick Pitino came to coach at UofL that was something that he strived to change and make a difference, and boy has he. UofL has an amazing graduation rate now days especially for the men's basketball team and there is a huge focus on scholarship and an education for all of athletics at the university.
I enjoyed the article on student athlete's graduation rates. I thought it was interesting to see that student athlete's rates of graduation are slightly higher than their peers. My thoughts on the subject, because I was an athlete and I work with athletes are mixed. I do agree that there could be different factors that lead to this data. It is true that with many athletes, there is less concern with payment for school. Scholarships eliminate any stress or worry about money usually, and that could be a hinder to many non-student athletes. Working with the Men's Soccer team, the coach prides himself in having his players finish in 3 1/2 years. There is extra tutoring available and resources and this can also contribute to success. What did worry me about the article is the fact that some sports have such a low graduation rate. I agree with Emily when asking what are we doing about those sports?
To comment on Huda's article about FERPA, I think that it's crazy that an email containing such sensitive information was not handled properly. Yes I understand that mistakes happen...I'm not perfect...but I feel information such as student's grades shouldn't be sent through email. I think it's a better strategy to talk one on one with a student to avoid situations such as these.
I’m actually not surprised that athletes are graduating at a higher rate. Going through school at Iowa it seemed pretty normal for athletes to take an extra year or two to graduate, but all of the athletes I knew did graduate. My brother plays baseball at a DII school and this year DII decided this year to scale back their baseball schedule pretty significantly, his coach said the NCAA and the conference agreed that school comes first. The cut to their schedule takes out a lot of weekday games and should shorten some of their weekend trips. I worried about him a lot his first year of school, their conference includes schools up to 12 hours away, so sometimes they left school Friday afternoon and didn’t get back until Monday morning. He told me that even when the bus rolled in at 4am Monday he was still expected to be in his 8am class. Ouch. The coaches actually checked too. I don’t know if freshman that aren’t playing a sport have anyone watching their attendance that closely. I sure didn’t. He also has to go to mandatory study hours and his coaches get a report on his grades every week. If he doesn’t graduate it certainly wont’ be because no one was looking out for his grades or class attendance. I don’t know if every school pays attention to its athletes that way, but if they do I can easily see why athletes graduation rates are higher. The recruiting coordinator we worked with at Iowa also pointed out that athletes that leave school early to play professionally count against their graduation rate, but that’s not necessarily a bad outcome for those students.
For Chance's article about athletes graduating in higher rates than non-athletes, I can honestly say I wasn't surprised (an opinion that many of you seem to share). What I did find interesting was that the numbers didn't appear to be statistically that much better when viewed by the federal standards. So my thoughts on possible reasons for athletes having higher graduation rates: 1) Athletes often get full rides, so they don't have to drop out due to money issues. 2) Athletes get tutoring and special accommodations that non-athletes do not. 3) Athletes have something to focus on during college that encourages them to persist.
For Huda's article about FERPA, I couldn't help but laugh that solution to the problem of an errant email is a requirement to get permission from someone else for sending an email. While that is all fine and dandy, I don't see how it would have stopped an email being sent to the wrong list by mistake. As somebody that has accidentally forwarded a message to the wrong people, it happens all the time and there should be some stronger control to prevent the mistake from happening again (like requiring a password or a confirmation before hitting the send button). Just seems like the university is trying to cover it's butt and not get sued.
In my mind, this was definitely a violation of FERPA (whether intended or not). If they get sued, so what? That's why they keep general council.
P.S. Also, I found the Chilean miner reference hilarious (I know, I must be a terrible person).
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/10/uc-berkeley-stanford-energy-research-oil-companies.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GreenspaceEnvironmentBlog+%28Greenspace%29
ReplyDeleteThis article discusses the influence of big oil companies on college campuses and whether there is a conflict of interest between the two.
http://chronicle.com/article/Graduation-Rates-for/125123/
This article discusses the fact that college athletes graduate at higher rate than those that are not in athletics.
I enjoyed the graduation rate for athletes article. Being a collegiate athlete I agree with the fact that the "dumb jock" is a myth. I felt when I was involved in athletics, it gave me more focus, a reason to succeed in the classroom, as well as a support system to help me succeed on and off the court. Granted, there are always going to be athletes that are not concerned at all with academics, I think for the most part, athletics is a way for some individuals to continue their education. It offers financial assistance, making an education more accessable. Many student athletes utilize that assistance and make the most out of their academic experience.
ReplyDeleteThe conflict of interest article came very timely with class. I think that after reading the implications of oil companies contributing to collegiate "research" can be viewed as a conflict of interest. Dr Miller stated that if it looks suspicious, even if it is not, then don't do it. In this case, oil companies are being viewed as "buying" universities and controlling their research, or creating these investments to gain a better public image. The contribution to the universities is probably for research purposes, but its seemed that the article expressed that the companies are ot doing much with the green research. It just looks like they are trying to go green, but not actually implimenting any changes. That is an ethical issue as well as a conflict of interest.
I feel a since of pride when reading the article on atheletic graduate rates. I know in high school and in college atheletes had a bad rep. of not doing well academicly. I find it quirky as well that student athlletes wouldnt do well, sure those that have full scholorships dont have to worry about the financial constraints non athletes have to deal with, but they do have other worries such as expectations and keeping their grades up so they can contiue to do what they like to do to get their education. There are many reasons why some students do well and/or dont do well. What is something as aspiring student affairs proffesionals can we develop in collaboration with academic affairs can we do to ensure that everyone has a chance to do well?
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the “Big Oil Goes to College” article, I can truly understand why there is a conflict of interest occurring. It baffles me to know that according to the article, “major oil companies are currently investing little of their considerable profits in clean-energy research and development within their companies.” I’m baffled because one of the major current trends within universities and corporations is being sustainable and here you have over 10 major universities and global enterprises being environmentally irresponsible and undergoing unethical practices. I learned as an undergrad finance major that being environmentally responsible to a major aspect of being sustainable. Reading this article is a contradiction to the progression that American universities and global enterprises are trying to achieve, thus resulting in a major conflict of interest.
ReplyDeleteReading the article about scholarship athletes having a higher graduation rate than those who are not athletes really means a lot to me. Me being a Division I track and field athlete here at USF, I have always been categorized as the typical “dumb-jock.” I feel completely disgusted whenever someone who is not an athlete says that because they do not have no idea of what we as athletes have to go through. People fail to realize the amount of pressure that athletics are under in order to maintain a high academic standard as well as perform at a high level for their university. In Division I athletics, athletes are required to take a minimum of 12 credits per semester, maintain the required GPA per semester, and meet a certain number of credits per year in order to be eligible to participate in any athletic functions, both practices and competitions. In addition to trying to maintain a level of academic security, athletes have to do this while enduring over 20 hours of practice and meeting times a week, weekly competition that includes traveling all over the country on, and any other obligations in their lives. I personally think that the life of an athlete is more vigorous than the normal collegiate student because of all the pressures and time constraints we are under. To know that athletes are graduating at a higher rate than those who are not athletes really proves that we are not “dumb-jocks” and I can only hope that the negative stereotype becomes a distant memory.
First of all…missed you guys this week!
ReplyDeleteSecond, I found the “Graduation Rates for Scholarship Athletes” article pretty interesting. I am not surprised to see that athletes do well academically because it is a requirement to maintain decent grades if you would like to stay involved in athletics. Throughout my academic career there were always two kinds of athletes: the ones that took academics seriously, and the ones that did not. The ones that did not do well learned the hard way and had to either bring up the grades or be booted. The sad part is that athletes in high school and college received special treatment for missing class and a lengthier time to complete assignments while other clubs and organizations who were also doing great things for the schools were not treated so well. I feel as though everyone who participates in extracurricular activities that represents the school whether at athletic games, organizational conferences or theatre to name a few, should be given the same considerations.
Hey guys, here are two more articles to contribute:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/education/28college.html?_r=1&ref=education
This article talks about how rising tuition costs have been accompanied by an increase in financial aid.
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=201010270323
This one addresses FERPA and how easily it can be breeched through carelessness.
The Wesley e-mail article grabbed my attention immediately. After reading the mining comment, I had my doubts about the professionalism of this student affairs individual. But when it was revealed that it was Wesley's Director of Advisement, I could not be more dejected. Here is an individual, claiming to be a professional, serving the interests of the students, yet making such tactless comments and distributing them so carelessly. Those students probably have a lawsuit in their hands, despite their GPAs being low enough for dismissal.
ReplyDelete1. Even though it is great that many student-athletes are graduating, there are still 29 teams that did not graduate a single player. What can be done to help those students? The article did not go into details about any special circumstances that may explain the zero graduation-success rate, but to have 29 teams of varying sizes not graduate a single individual is concerning. Even more concerning is that these teams were from 27 schools, so at least 1 institution is unable to graduate students from more than one team. This institution may need to re-evaluate how they are managing their academics.
ReplyDelete2. The Wesley incident is really disturbing, and the implied email phrasing from the article brings up the ethical issues we discussed in class this week. The students named in that email were not being treated with respect or care. It makes the institution and individuals look very bad and has surely made other students wonder what else is said behind closed doors. The issue of student privacy & technology was also raised in another article in the Chronicle this week regarding Dartmouth and Cornell releasing the names and contact information of students who did not make financial donations to the school as seniors. Both articles make you wonder if students really understand what laws exist regarding their privacy, etc.
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ReplyDeleteWe miss you, too, Justin…
ReplyDeleteNo matter how these major-oil companies and universities try to explain themselves in this matter, there is a conflict of interest taking place. These oil companies are giving out multi-million dollar donations to these institutions. It wouldn’t be surprising if the institutions owed them a favor in return. For me, the issue is that the donation may have been done to benefit the company rather than benefitting higher education. Like a ring being pawned for a certain price, the resources that these institutions have to conduct research for gas emissions and such have been pawned for a hefty price…
Reading the article on college athletes graduating at higher rates brought in great insight about the issue. During my senior year of college, I was able to see a number of student-athletes be honored for their academic achievements. However, I did notice that very few of them played the high profile sports like football, basketball and baseball. A possibility behind this fact is that there is added pressure to perform well in these sports. When you have screaming fans, media and overall excitement among the atmosphere of the game, more focus may be put on the sport rather than academics. Who knows? Regardless, one thing to note is that many athletic programs have strong academic support services which do help student-athletes succeed. As long as student-athletes are doing their part and receiving t he support needed, the stats will continue to soar…
During undergrad, I did notice my financial aid package rise as the tuition rise also. Schools do make an effort to benefit students in that way. The issue, however, is that if tuition continues to go up, will there be enough funding to help students fund their education? More and more students are carrying huge debt loads, and that shouldn’t be the case when most students are entering fields that do benefit society, economy and the like. Hopefully, universities will be able to figure out how to make tuition more cost-effective…
Great job Chance tying in the article "Big Oil goes to college: a conflict of interest?" into what we just talked about in class on Wednesday. I completely agree with Corey in the instance that I feel the institutions will probably feel like they owe the companies something in return in the future. The article states that for $50 million a year, an oil company would buy a portion of "America's premier public research institutions" turning them into their own profit. This makes you wonder if USF would fall into the category of a research institution and allow oil companies to purchase portions of the campus, with all of the going green talk it would not be a surprise to me.
ReplyDeleteThe Graduation rates of student athletes article I found shocking, I did not think that athletes was very high. My opinion of college athletes, and yes this may be cynical but I always thought that many athletes went to college to play sports to get drafted to the professional leagues and then did not finish college. It is enlightening to see that 79% of them are completing their degrees. Although, many of them have strong support systems throughout the process because they have to maintain certain GPA's and are not taking such strenuating classes. (i.e. molecular biology)
Athletes give up their ferpa rights and also have to follow a lot more rules and regulations. Such as having curfews and not being allowed to do particular activities that many other college students partake in.
I agree with Huda's comment about the student affairs professional and the email she sent out about a dozen students. As she was sitting there thinking about who to send them email to, and inputting each individuals email address did she not realize the breach of privacy? This almost makes me want to reach through my computer screen and shake her. I understand that commonsense and being smart rarely come in the same package for a lot of people, but as a student affairs professional and a dean of students you should be setting the example to those below you. That should be a mistake that you simply do not make.
ReplyDeleteI was shocked to read about the email sent to all students at Wesley College with the names of students who were at risk of being kicked out because of poor grades. Even though the school had a limited number of individuals with the access to email the entire student body, the mistake was still made. I think the suggestion in the article about having another administrator look over an email being sent to all students is one way to help prevent this from happening again. Perhaps she and many others could just slow down and double check the message and who it is being sent to before pressing the send button. Like Emily, I also saw the article about Dartmouth and Cornell student volunteers passing around the names of seniors who didn’t donate to the school. Here is the link if anyone is interested: http://chronicle.com/article/Students-at-2-Ivy-League/125056/?sid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en
ReplyDeleteIt was frustrating to read in the “Big Oil goes to college” article that these large oil companies are limiting academic independence and may only be donating funds to portray a “green” image. There will always be limits to what can and cannot be researched because of funding, but when the donor controls so many aspects of the research it isn’t fair there is a conflict of interest. If a company wants to have that much control, they could do the research in their own facilities.
I enjoyed reading the article on student athletes. I'm interested in learning about which universities these stats came from. I also think it would be beneficial to learn how the athletic academic advising staff/administrators run their operations. There are increasing demands and high expectations on student athletes and it's important that they utilize the services that are available to them. In addition it's important that employees in athletics advocate for academic success. A coach caring about an athletes grades verses just his/her athletic performance can make a difference.
ReplyDeleteI literally had to shake my head after reading the to the Wesley College article. I completely understand mistakes, BUT when you are dealing with sensitive information giving your undivided attention to it is important. There were 18 students in danger of failing, 18 students! These notifications could have been delivered directly to the students. This is just another example of the misuse of technology and the implications for this misuse are potentially dangerous.
The article "E-mail Goes too Wide at Wesley" is frightening. I'm sure all of us have made a similar error before by sending a text message to the wrong person or like in the article, sending an email to someone we had not intended to send it to. While technology has made communication faster and easier, it also makes it easier for information to get into the hands of the wrong people. I liked the idea presented toward the end of the article that the campus is considering having a requirement of a second administrator sign off on an email before it is sent out campus wide. This could prevent similar future occurrences.
ReplyDelete"As College Fees Climb, Aid Does Too" was also interesting to me. An 8% increase in four-year public institution tuition is a pretty big jump. And if this trend continues, already high tuition rates will be astronomical before long. As mentioned in the article, I don't see financial aid disbursements continuing to increase at the same rate as tuition. Terry Hartle also raised an important point when she mentioned how students who are not eligible for financial aid will really feel the pain of rising tuition rates. These students may be forced to take out loans to make up for the difference and put themselves at a financial disadvantage by the time they graduate. It was interesting that the article mentioned finding a way to use technology to make higher education cheaper as many of our conversations have revolved around technology lately. I wonder if such developments will cost us our campus communities though and vastly change the face of colleges and universities.
The article discussing college athletes and their GPA’s hopefully brings some light to people about student athletes. The sad thing is that there is a stereotype that goes with student athletes. The idea that student athletes are dumb and get special privileges because of their relation to athletics. But, that is something that throughout time college athletes are going to have to just prove is a wrong perception of them. Just like Greeks have the stereotype of being partiers and always drinking alcohol. That is something that is not true, but that is the stereotype. Colleges are full of generalizations, but it is just up to the individuals in that group to do what they can to shine some light on who they truly are. Hopefully this article along with others will show people the truth behind college athletes.
ReplyDeleteThe “E-mail goes too wide at Wesley” article shows just how big a mistake can go. The fact that the email went out to thousands of students showing other student’s grades is not good, and the fact that the comments about the Chilean miners are in there does not help the cause. FERPA is something to take seriously and I do not know exactly what the next moves are for the college. In the article it said that funding is one way to be penalized for breaking FERPA rules, and I do not know if this was that major of an infraction to get funding taken away. But, I hope that the Dean of Students personally apologizes to the students that were affected by this incident. I can only think of how embarrassing it is for them for all their peers to see their grades and read the comments of professional faculty about them.
I, like many others, was intrigued by the graduation rates of college athletes. I agree with many of you that athletes have strenuous schedules and commitments beyond their academics but they also have a larger support system than the average non athlete student. What if all students were given that much support or incentives such as scholarships, elligibility to particicpate in their favorite past time, or other factors that can intrinsically motivate student athletes? Would all graduation rates be higher? Also, the US Department of Education rates don't include the benefit of counting students who transfer schools and their degree completion towards the graduation rate. If the national average was calculated with this as a factor, would student athletes still out perform all students when it comes to graduation rates?
ReplyDeleteI also was shocked by the breech of personal information and security at Wesley College. I know people make mistakes like sending an email or text message to the wrong person and I understand how it happens. What stuck me as a good idea was how BYU and Campbell have a policy where they do not discuss student grades over email. This is a good practie everywhere but especially good in Florida where the Sunshine Law can expose any information that was written over email by requesting it. One of our presenters talked about how they use student initials if they must email about a situation and this is a great thing to think about as we continue to interact with students and learn personal details that are protected by FERPA.
As I read the article about the FERPA issues a Wesley University, the first thing I thought is how is this possible. At USF professors are not even allowed to send grades of any sort through email due to the fact that information put in emails is public information. I also thought that this was a nation wide concept and also applied to professors sending this information to students and other officials on campus. I am sure there is a reason as to why sending grades, GPA, etc are not allowed to be sent over email, and this mishap is why it is enforced by some institutions. I think it is very interesting that this institutions risks loosing funding and they don't seem to be bothered by that at all!
ReplyDeleteWith regard to the Wesley College email situation, I am reminded of the saying that an offense is sometimes made worse by the explanation. Mr. Olsen, who wrote the original message, is clearly in need of sensitivity training and deep reflection about his communication choices. Regardless of the “handful” of “intended” recipients having access to this message, he was NOT looking out for the best interest of the students. Mr. Olsen was clearly making an insensitive mockery of the academic struggles of students whom he has chosen to serve professionally. He claims that his communication choices in the email reflect his “colorful” style and personality. Regardless of his intent to have this message viewed only by colleagues, Mr. Olsen was wrong to express these unfortunate grades in such a crude manner. This was a written correspondence, which allowed opportunity for review and consideration before sending. A solution has been determined to prevent future “mistakes” from occurring when sending emails to multiple recipients. Mr. Olsen needs a safeguard established to help him consider his “colorful” communication choices. Mr. Olsen was clearly the spark that lit the fuse which led to his unfortunate explosion.
ReplyDeleteWow. The FERPA article really stuck out to me. It’s a shame that something like that had to happen but it is understandable how a mistake like that can happen. Technology is growing stronger every day and careless mistakes such as these are bound to happen, especially with emails. This has happened to me before where I have sent the wrong email to the wrong person and didn’t realize it until that person emailed me back. Last week in class we this was mentioned. When I was an RA I knew that students had certain rights to privacy when it came to parents but I did not know to what extent. One time, during move out, a parent called the duty phone (and I just happened to be on duty) and asked me what her daughter’s room number was because she was not answering her phone and they have been waiting for her for over a half hour. I, of course could not give out that information, and the situation escalated and the hall director had to be called. Many parents don’t know about FERPA, and many staff members are not aware of the extent of privacy that students have. This is something that is mentioned at training but not in depth and I think it should be because any small careless mistake can lead to a more critical situation.
ReplyDeleteStories about college athlete graduation rates have been showing up in the news rather frequently lately, so the selection of this article is not all that surprising. I also wasn't too surprised to hear that the rates are as high as they are. Though athletes do have tough schedules and numerous commitments, as Becca pointed out, almost all of these students have a considerably larger support system than the average student. Resources like tutors and student support centers are available for use by student athletes that are not available to non-athletes, some of whom are just as busy. Things are never going to be fair or equal, but I don't think it's fair to praise all athletes for graduating at higher rates when they are offered such advantages. I would be interested to see what academics and advising are like at the institutions that do not graduate athletes at such high rates.
ReplyDeleteThe article "As College Fees Rise, Aid Does Too," was encouraging. Especially now that many students struggle to afford college, the raise in aid is so important. I was a little surprised to read that there was more government aid available to students, though it is not unwelcome. The priority now should be to come up with a solution for keeping costs from rising at their current rate, of over 5% a year, in order to keep this issue from impacting future students even more.
Like everyone I was shocked by the email that went out to the students at Wesley! I can not believe that first the academic advisor would write such things about their students. Especially the Chile comment! I understand that this was a mistake, but why was this information sent over email in the first place? Like CJ said FERPA is something to be taken very seriously, and I do not think they were doing this at Wesley!
ReplyDeleteI also read the article on the athletes graduation rate. Like Caitlin stated above, it is not surprising to me that they have a higher graduation rate because of the extra resources. Not only do they have the tutoring centers, but they are also on scholarships so they may not have the same finical pressure that other students have that may cause them to drop out of school.
Like many of you have said, the email sent out at Wesley is appalling. I agree that, when sending numerous emails at once, it gets tricky making sure all get to the right group. A click of the wrong listserve or contact list easily sent that email far and wide. However, perhaps an equally concerning issue is the “colorful” language used in the email. I agree with Mark that this did not demonstrate a genuine concern for the students. While individuals’ personalities may help build community in the workplace, these comments said via email were unnecessary. The students’ GPAs were indicative enough of their academic struggles. While the email was only meant for a handful of advisors, it was posted to the internet regardless. We teach first year students to watch what they post on the internet. While the intentions were harmless, this individual must consider his professional appearance, especially as a director of advisement. It will be interesting to see what kind of disciplinary action is taken, if any.
ReplyDeleteI found the article about rising tuition costs being offset by rising financial aid to be encouraging. However, this has been a development for students only in recent years. Sandy Baum called it an “aberration,” which seems appropriate. Financial aid will not always be able to increase with tuition, which leaves the bigger issue to be increasing tuition. Like Andrea, I also found it interesting that the article ended with thoughts of how to use technology to make education cheaper. Does this mean more online classes? More “digital” events, such as the career center’s recent online career fair? We’ll have to see if this is the next report they come out with.
I was interested in the article on athlete graduation rates. I found that the comments below the article show some interesting thoughts. Several of the comments say that the athletes have more time and fewer money problems than a student would have if they were working. After spending time with some athletes and seeing the practice and travel requirements, this is hard to understand. For sports like basketball and baseball (which have some of the lower graduation rates) they are out of town 2-4 days per week during the season. Travel is never conducive to studying and it has to have a negative effect on classroom attendance as well. As Greg pointed out, athletes face pressures that most of us will not face in college. Besides the practice time, grades, year round training, travel and student responsibilities, they have to perform to maintain the scholarship.
ReplyDeleteTaking a look at the link that showed the 10 highest and ten lowest performing schools, I saw that the athletic rates were reflective of the university rates. Without seeing all the numbers, you could assume that graduation is as much a reflection of the school in general rather than just the athletes. For the schools like Kentucky or Connecticut, the grad rates will likely change when they become priorities for the schools. Those coaches aren’t paid millions to worry about the academics for their athletes. For UK, they put four guys in the pros last year alone. Although this will ruin grad rates for the team, it certainly shows that the school prepared the students for very lucrative careers in their chosen profession.
Considering the amount of federal dollars going to private schools, I would expect to hear more complaints about it. At the state level, the idea of charter schools receiving aid that would otherwise go to public schools is a hot topic every year. Private colleges, including those run by religious organizations, receive federal and state money each year through Pell, Bright Futures and student loans. I know that the federal money going to the for-profits is under scrutiny, but it is interesting to me that this other issue is untouched.
ReplyDeleteIt was good to see in the article that the net cost for low income students has actually decreased over the last 5 years. I was shocked that such a low percentage of aid is need based and would expect that to keep changing as state programs like Florida’s Bright Futures and Georgia’s Hope continue to see cuts in their aid. What is also part of the discussion, although not in this article, is that we should expect to see loans also increasing as costs increase. As we have all learned, tuition is not the only measure of the expense of college. Schools have to look at additional ways to pass some costs along to students via fees and other add-ons. We learned last week that medical insurance may be the next add-on here at USF, and we should keep looking for these each year. We cannot count on federal spending to stay at the current level for long.
I am glad that the athletes graduating rates has been published for people to see. That sterotype is old and outdated and it needs to stop. It is so easy for people who are not athletes to look at athletes and think oh they have it so easy which is completly not the case. I was not a college athlete but I can only imagine how had it would be to balance academics and athletics and its nice to see athletes succeed on and off the court/field.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with really everyone who commented on the Wesley case. I am not sure if the unversity does not deal with failing students very often but addressing the issue the way they did even to each other or what was meant to be each other was just inappropiate. I also do not agree with the way the dean tried to back it up saying everyone uses a different personality to get the point across. There is a professional way to go about things no matter what you personality and that was not correct. I hope all schools learn from this and I really do feel back for the students but at least their names were not mentioned in the article to bring about further embarressment.
I thought the article that Huda posted "As College Fees Rise, Aid Does Too" interesting because I work in financial aid right now and see first hand the great amount of grants, scholarships, and financial aid we hand out to students. I don't think there is a standing problem of students not being able to afford school anymore, which is good. On the other hand, I find it very scary how much debt students are leaving with out of college. The article didn't really touch on that topic, but I think it is going to become a big issue soon because students are not going to be able to repay all their debt.
ReplyDeleteI also thought that the article that Chance posted about college athletes graduating at a fast rate was interesting because I didn't realize this was happening. I assumed athletes would have focused more on their sports than academics. However, now most colleges are really focusing on the "student athlete" prospective. This prospective is where school work comes first and athletics comes second. Also, athletes are really taken care of at colleges and universities. They have advisors and their grades are constantly being checked. I'm glad most athletic programs at colleges have a higher graduation rate, but it is still not that much of a difference between non-athlete students attending colleges who are not constantly being checked on and motivating themselves.
In regards to the College Athletes article, I am very impressed with college athletes today. I sometimes buy in to the stereo type that college athletes don’t do as well academically, but I have been proved wrong. I think that college athletes have the incentive to do better academically to continue playing for the school. I also know advisors carefully look at athlete’s academic progress and grades, and they can help give them an extra push to keep them performing well academically.
ReplyDeleteEmails have always been a source for instant massive exchange of information. I’m not surprised that this happened. However, I am surprised that the school administrator was not careful to make sure the information was sent to the proper places. If something like this slipped, it leads one to believe that grades are a common exchange over email at Wesley. I guess they will have a fun time with damage control at this point.
Reading the article, “As College Fees Climb, Aid Does Too,” I hoped that the article would shed some light on the reasons behind the yearly incremental increases. It was encouraging to see that financial aid awards continued to rise at the same time, but at what point will the aid slow down and not meet the rate of tuition increase? And like the article points out, “…very few families are seeing their income go up 8 percent this year.” As Megan pointed out, the debt students accumulate during their undergraduate years will be an issue complete on its own. The enormous debt of our generation will likely show reparation for future students and their ability to receive aid.
ReplyDeleteThe article about the Wesley email is wrong on so many levels. To have the originator of the mail defend his statements as "that is my personality" and that he was trying to make it seem serious by joking about it I believe is just a last ditch effort to cover himself in the situation. I think using initials or moving to a policy of only discussing topics as sensitive as this over the phone would be a good decision on the part of many universities. Even though the email was recalled and only a handful of students actually ready it, we all know the students who did read it probably have printed and forwarded it out. My heart goes out to these students who obviously have been embarassed by this email and I would assume that they are no longer a part of the unversity by their own choice now.
ReplyDeleteThe other article that struck me was the possible conflict of interest between oil companies and university research institutions. What a struggle this has to be on so many levels with budgets being cut because of state aid - how could a university turn down any money from a company if they were concerned about a conflict of interest? And where does a university even begin to look for money from any company as any of these relationships could potentially become a conflict of interest when it comes to programs or research projects. I would definitely enjoy reading the full report on this to see the details of how much influence the board does exert over the research that is being conducted. With state aid continuing to be cut, I have a feeling this topic will remain at the forefront for many years.
The first thing I thought when I read "College athletes graduate at higher rates than non-athletes" and "Rising tuition costs associated with increased financial aid" was "Yea right."
ReplyDeleteI don't know much about student-athletes except that they received more attention on my college campus than seemingly any other people there. I remember when they tightened up the requirements and I was glad about that. I'd like to see more data/information.
Some of the info in the financial aid article rang a personal bell.
“When you look at how much students are actually paying, on average, it is lower, after adjusting for inflation, than five years earlier.”
This sounds like malarkey to me. There is no doubt that an education is more expensive today than ever before, and it's getting more so.
"The good news is that Pell grants will cushion the increases for low-income students, but if you’re not eligible for financial aid, it’s a problem, since very few families are seeing their income go up 8 percent this year.”
I can personally relate to this. Coming from a middle class family, I knew I wasn't ever going to qualify for financial aid. But this isn't because I didn't need it. So I relied on academics to get me the most money to the best school possible. Many of the (need-based) grants/full scholarships etc...are based on lower- and lower-middle class salary brackets while the merit-based aid is dependent upon very extraordinary academic performance. This leaves a lot of students "in the middle" to find their own way/fend for themselves.
“We have to figure out how to educate students in a more cost-efficient way,” Ms. Baum said. “We haven’t yet figured out how to use technology to make it cheaper. But we will.”
These implications for future practice frighten me. This increased reliance on technology, I'm not too sure about. I'm down for making education more cost-efficient, but I fear more people looking to technology as a panacea for educational issues.
"Graduation Rates for Scholarship Athletes" is an interesting article. It doesn't shock me that 79% of student athletes at Division I schools graduate within six years - in fact, I'm quite impressed as I would have guessed that figure to be in the 60% range. What I found most interesting, however, is that the sports that struggle the most are football, basketball, and baseball. I would venture to guess that these are the most demanding of the major college sports, although Greg, Ashley, and Clara might disagree. So instead, I'll make a different point... These are the sports that have the greatest potential for future success. So many athletes come to college now to succeed in the NFL, NBA, or MLB. Could it be that some of these athletes truly believe they'll make it to the professional leagues and simply don't care enough about academics to try very hard?
ReplyDeleteOk - this Wesley email story is ridiculous. Here's the last sentence of the story... "Olsen said he sent the message to provide academic help for students with grade point averages under 1.00." You know what doesn't sound like academic help to me? "The hole she has dug is deeper than the mine shaft in Chile."
That is absolutely unacceptable. Dr. Miller talked about how professionals will talk with one another about students, saying that there are just certain things he wouldn't tell Dr. Henry, adding that she would find out on her own someday. Olsen should have done the same. It is one thing to say, "these students are struggling and we need to provide support" and a totally different story to ridicule or even compare the situation in a satirical way. The fact that the email got out just magnifies the mistakes that were made in this case.
I was really impressed with the graduation rates of student athletes! I know that they have added pressures with practice, trainings, travel etc. so to know their studies are still priority is encouraging. It also shows that most student athletes do have valuable resources at their disposal such as advisors and tutoring and they are taking advantage of those.
ReplyDeleteOk, I understand the concern about the Wesley article but I cannot say that I am outraged. While I do think it was a bonehead move by the dean to send the e-mail to students I think the original intent of the e-mail was pure. I think in this day and age you have to be very careful what you put into writing at ANY time, and I do think FERPA should be taken very seriously. At the same time I think that this advisor is showing a actual concern for the students' academic struggles, otherwise he would not have e-mailed in the first place. I think he could have chosen his words more carefully but still think his intent to genrate a reaction from other advisors about the severity of the situation is ok.
I could not agree more with Ryan and Labs about the college athletes article. If they did not account for the prospects of the students leaving for the professional leagues than clearly they need to add another variable to the study. Late in the article it mentions low graduation rates among men's basketball players from the University of Connecticut. I couldn't help but make the connection between this program and the pros. Another thought that I had when reading the article is that we could use it for our research study (if it was peer refereed). It shows the direct correlation between involvement and student success.
ReplyDeleteNext I read the FERPA article cited by Huda. It seems too unreal to be true, the email was really titled "please see the hit parade below: ARE ANY OURS?" But you are correct Huda, this definitely shows the inevitable mistakes that lead to a breach of FERPA. I wonder if the sunshine laws have any censor that protects college student identity that relates to FERPA. After doing a little research I found that Ohio has an edit to FERPA in its version of the sunshine laws that allows it to override FERPA, at least according to Bowling Green.
I was very tickled by the scholarship athletes graduation rate article. I have been following UofL sports since I was young and of course my parents love to discuss the sports teams and players all the time. I remember back in the mid 90's UofL had a horrible graduation rate for it's athletes particularly the mens basketball team. However, when Rick Pitino came to coach at UofL that was something that he strived to change and make a difference, and boy has he. UofL has an amazing graduation rate now days especially for the men's basketball team and there is a huge focus on scholarship and an education for all of athletics at the university.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the article on student athlete's graduation rates. I thought it was interesting to see that student athlete's rates of graduation are slightly higher than their peers. My thoughts on the subject, because I was an athlete and I work with athletes are mixed. I do agree that there could be different factors that lead to this data. It is true that with many athletes, there is less concern with payment for school. Scholarships eliminate any stress or worry about money usually, and that could be a hinder to many non-student athletes. Working with the Men's Soccer team, the coach prides himself in having his players finish in 3 1/2 years. There is extra tutoring available and resources and this can also contribute to success. What did worry me about the article is the fact that some sports have such a low graduation rate. I agree with Emily when asking what are we doing about those sports?
ReplyDeleteTo comment on Huda's article about FERPA, I think that it's crazy that an email containing such sensitive information was not handled properly. Yes I understand that mistakes happen...I'm not perfect...but I feel information such as student's grades shouldn't be sent through email. I think it's a better strategy to talk one on one with a student to avoid situations such as these.
I’m actually not surprised that athletes are graduating at a higher rate. Going through school at Iowa it seemed pretty normal for athletes to take an extra year or two to graduate, but all of the athletes I knew did graduate. My brother plays baseball at a DII school and this year DII decided this year to scale back their baseball schedule pretty significantly, his coach said the NCAA and the conference agreed that school comes first. The cut to their schedule takes out a lot of weekday games and should shorten some of their weekend trips. I worried about him a lot his first year of school, their conference includes schools up to 12 hours away, so sometimes they left school Friday afternoon and didn’t get back until Monday morning. He told me that even when the bus rolled in at 4am Monday he was still expected to be in his 8am class. Ouch. The coaches actually checked too. I don’t know if freshman that aren’t playing a sport have anyone watching their attendance that closely. I sure didn’t. He also has to go to mandatory study hours and his coaches get a report on his grades every week. If he doesn’t graduate it certainly wont’ be because no one was looking out for his grades or class attendance. I don’t know if every school pays attention to its athletes that way, but if they do I can easily see why athletes graduation rates are higher. The recruiting coordinator we worked with at Iowa also pointed out that athletes that leave school early to play professionally count against their graduation rate, but that’s not necessarily a bad outcome for those students.
ReplyDeleteFor Chance's article about athletes graduating in higher rates than non-athletes, I can honestly say I wasn't surprised (an opinion that many of you seem to share). What I did find interesting was that the numbers didn't appear to be statistically that much better when viewed by the federal standards. So my thoughts on possible reasons for athletes having higher graduation rates: 1) Athletes often get full rides, so they don't have to drop out due to money issues. 2) Athletes get tutoring and special accommodations that non-athletes do not. 3) Athletes have something to focus on during college that encourages them to persist.
ReplyDeleteJust my thoughts.
For Huda's article about FERPA, I couldn't help but laugh that solution to the problem of an errant email is a requirement to get permission from someone else for sending an email. While that is all fine and dandy, I don't see how it would have stopped an email being sent to the wrong list by mistake. As somebody that has accidentally forwarded a message to the wrong people, it happens all the time and there should be some stronger control to prevent the mistake from happening again (like requiring a password or a confirmation before hitting the send button). Just seems like the university is trying to cover it's butt and not get sued.
ReplyDeleteIn my mind, this was definitely a violation of FERPA (whether intended or not). If they get sued, so what? That's why they keep general council.
P.S. Also, I found the Chilean miner reference hilarious (I know, I must be a terrible person).