Dive Brief:
- Bentley University Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students J. Andrew Shepardson writes for the Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education that athletics should be a part of student affairs, rather than its own, sometimes larger-than-life, department or entity.
- Shepardson pointed to the benefits of the broader engagement for both student-athletes and non-athlete students, and the impact of athletics on the overall campus culture, in making a case for athletics as part of the university's bigger student life picture.
- Additionally, incorporating the student affairs department helps alleviate some of the pressure from the president, who is required by NCAA bylaws to play a role in the university's athletics. By involving Shepardson, he says, student development becomes the preeminent focus and promotes greater attention to the wellbeing of student-athletes.
Dive Insight:
At many Power Five institutions, the football or men's basketball coach, not the college president, is the highest-paid individual on campus, which can make it difficult to suggest this individual be accountable to other offices on campus. But in a March interview with Education Dive, University of Hartford President Walter Harrison, who served on both the NCAA’s Committee on Academic Performance and its executive committee, said he questions if the design of the collegiate sports enterprise allows institutions to think about the student-athletes in the revenue sports as students first.
In the most competitive programs, the student-athletes are completely separated from the rest of the institution and are not permitted the same opportunities to soak up the non-athletics aspects of student life. Their majors are picked by their coaches, their academic advisers and all of their classes are housed in the athletics complex, they're forbidden from engaging in any student protests, and their training schedules inhibit their participation in most other student activities. In the same story, Amy Perko, CEO of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, said she believes schools have gotten to a place where they allow what's best for the students to be dictated by those who stand to profit off of their play — primarily the TV networks.
However, there is merit to Shepardson's argument, and administrators at institutions of all sizes should be more cognizant of how students are experiencing the campus. However, the job of facilitating student life can't fall exclusively to the head of that department. A spring survey found presidents overall "tone deaf" to the needs of students, ranking student life/experience near the bottom of their priorities. This disconnect, according to some experts, is related to the high turnover in the president's office. It is incumbent upon campus presidents to set the tone for the institution, and this includes for the student-athletes, like any other students under their perview.