Putting Sports into Perspective

by President Henry A. Zimon, Ph.D.

he chancellor of Vanderbilt University, Gordon Gee, recently made national headlines when he decided to restructure the university’s athletics program and bring it under the Student Life Division with student recreation activities and intramurals.

Why the big stir? And why is something we have always done at Albright considered so revolutionary in higher education?

High-profile sports in Division I universities like Vanderbilt are generally a world unto themselves. They run their own show, produce lots of revenue and serve as a launch pad for professional teams. The pressure on student athletes is tremendous.

Gee feared that this disconnect from the rest of the university opens the door for abuse, as seen by scandals at other universities. But his primary worry was about the price his student athletes pay for this intensive competition at the expense of the activities important for a complete undergraduate experience.

These athletes, he said, “typically don’t participate in the extracurricular activities so important for personal growth, miss opportunities to study abroad or pursue internships, spend too much time in special sports facilities that are off-limits to most students, and live in a world defined by coaches’ insatiable demands for practices and workouts.”

“… We’re making a clear statement that the term student-athlete … belongs back in education’s lexicon,” Gee said in a recent article in CASE Currents.

At Albright, the term “student-athlete,” or “scholar-athlete” has never left our lexicon. It is the guiding principle for Albright’s 22 varsity sports. We provide ample opportunities for students to participate in athletics, but athletics is just one dimension in our holistic approach to education that focuses on the whole person. No question that the playing field offers unparalleled opportunities for learning skills and teamwork, but it must do so in concert with the rest of each student’s educational experience. In fact, becoming a leader in the whole-person approach to education – mind, body and spirit – is one of our five strategic goals at Albright.

At Albright, our coaches do not rule autonomous fiefdoms. They are not only coaches, but teachers who support the primary educational goals of the College for our scholar athletes. Coaches often create study groups for the team while traveling. They sponsor breakfast clubs to check in with how the teams are doing off the field. They match up a student who needs some help in a subject with another who is excelling. Coaches have been known to videotape important lectures so athletes with tough schedules can view them when they can.

While NCAA Division III schools like Albright are not required to have a minimum GPA for student athletes, Albright has an academic standards policy for athletics. Not only that, it was created by students themselves in 1997 to show their commitment to learning and their conviction that they are students first.

It was courageous for Vanderbilt’s chancellor to take such a stand against a historic way of running athletics programs in Division I schools. And while our schools are vastly different, we have exactly the same set of priorities. I applaud Chancellor Gee for standing up against what must have been immense pressure and making sure his students win on and off the field.