Presented March 18, 2014 in Baltimore, Maryland. Summary The demands placed on today’s student-athletes challenge their own engagement in traditional student life. Campuses either ignore these issues or continue to try and force the “square peg into the round hole.” The key to effectively integrating athletics with student life is to first understand the student-athlete […]
PoA #017: Complaints Happen, Are You Ready?
No matter how sound your management and leadership practices are, things happen. With hundreds of student-athletes participating each year, it’s inevitable that some will have concerns, complaints or issues they will express to the Athletics Director (or higher authority). So what do you do? Do you have a plan in place? Are there policies or […]
The Role of Athletics in Student-Athletes’ Lives
Student-athletes are held to higher standards than the typical student. NCAA or other regulatory bodies have rules that determine eligibility in ways that theatre and music, for example, do not. Also unlike theater and music, student-athletes’ time commitments to their chosen co-curricular activity often comes into question. Is it fair? In our work and research, […]
Challenges and Opportunities Supporting Student-Athletes
Interview with Nate Bell, Vanderbilt Senior Academic Counselor Nate Bell is a former NCAA Division III basketball student-athlete at Wabash College (IN) and currently is a senior academic counselor in the Vanderbilt University department of athletics. He recently completed his doctoral degree from Vanderbilt in Higher Education Leadership. Nate brings a broad perspective on the […]
Student-Athlete Transition Support Programs
It may be too long ago for many of us to clearly recall our own experiences, but incoming student-athletes go through a major transition when they arrive on your campus. Most are first-year students, recently graduated from high school, living away from home for the first time. Adjusting to a new environment presents student-athletes with […]
What You Don’t Know Might Hurt You- Part Two
[Part 2 of 3: This three-part article addresses the current environment in collegiate athletics related to the student-athlete experience. Athletics directors and other campus administrators need to engage student-athletes in meaningful and systematic ways to promote communication, trust and accountability. The student-athlete experience must enhance overall educational goals at every institution. Find out how we […]
What You Don’t Know Might Hurt You- Part One
[Part 1 of 3: This three-part article addresses the current environment in collegiate athletics related to the student-athlete experience. Athletics directors and other campus administrators need to engage student-athletes in meaningful and systematic ways to promote communication, trust and accountability. The student-athlete experience must enhance overall educational goals at every institution. Find out how we […]
Compromised Virtue: Where do we go from here?
Athletics’ virtue has been obliterated by one scandal after another played out publicly in various media. If one thing can come from all of the recent media coverage of alleged coach “abuse” of student-athletes, it should be that we all need to pay more attention to what it happening within athletics programs… even if there […]