...if you're the Paper of Record, no use to worry about anything that contradicts your predetermined agenda.
Obviously, this one can't be let go without comment--Report: Cadillac Williams, other Auburn athletes draw academic scrutiny. This is a second hand report from USA Today, since the Times requires registration [update--here is the Times' story via Auburn's press center], but the gist of it is an evil antiacademic academic has been throwing grades around to the athletes at Auburn.
NEW YORK (AP) — Carnell "Cadillac" Williams and other Auburn athletes received high grades from the same professor for sociology and criminology courses that didn't require them to attend classes or do much work, The New York Times reported.
Williams, the former star running back who now plays for the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, told the newspaper the only two classes he took the spring semester of his senior year were one-on-one courses with Professor Thomas Petee, the sociology department's highest-ranking member.
[...] "I want to assure everyone associated with Auburn that upon completion of the investigation we will deal with this issue as we have dealt with other challenges — directly and openly," Auburn interim President Ed Richardson said in a statement.
The Times, citing records compiled by professor James Gundlach, the director of the Auburn sociology department who reports to Petee, reported one athlete took seven courses with Petee, three took six, five took five and eight took four.
Former Auburn defensive end Doug Langenfeld told the Times a directed-reading course with Petee required he read one book and write a 10-page paper. "I got a 'B' in the class," Langenfeld told the Times.
The newspaper said Gundlach found that more than a quarter of the students in Petee's directed-reading courses were athletes.
Several things here--preferential treatment for athletes only is not good--it serves no one's best interest to simply give away grades just to athletes. And although it seems to go on at all institutions of higher education that HAVE sports teams, it would still be wrong for Auburn to engage in it. There is no winner when your defense is simply "everyone else is doing it." IF that is actually what's going on here.
Some other things might need to be remembered--professors, and most especially DEPARTMENT HEADS--have a great deal of leeway in how they structure their coursework, including directed study courses, and how they assign grades. Although there is a certain part of the population who can't stand athletes and would like to see the savagery of football eliminated from campuses, they might also want to remember all those professors who give directed study work in such things as their precious wymyn's studies classes. Because if you don't like preferences for one group, it'll make it a lot harder to get a grade for attending a protest march and writing a paper about it. Get rid of one type? Get rid of them all, then.
Another thing--do all of the folks who take glee in this story really want us to start talking about the overall rigor of higher education? Oh, sure, we might want to beat up on athletes for being too dumb to graduate, but the liberal arts departments in the vast majority of colleges aren't exactly bastions of book-smarts. Should we start demanding that a bit more objectivity be injected into these offerings so that we can rest assured the next fine arts major who graduates can actually balance his checkbook? Well, I think so, but I can guarantee you people would start squealing if we suddenly decided to hold dance majors to the same standard we hold the math team to. Sauce, goose, gander.
Finally, the issue of the department head himself, Dr. Petee. I've been listening to the radio call-ins this morning, and I've heard at least four of his former and current students talk about him as one of the brightest and most gracious teachers they've had, and that he will make every effort to work with ALL students--athlete or not--to develop customized directed studies courses,even if that student winds up being the only student in the class, in order to help them overcome scheduling difficulties with other classes or with work. And, from all accounts and based upon what I have seen in my own academic involvement, just about ALL professors will do things like this for students--it's rare to see one who won't.
Now, given all that, along with the fact that there is no indication that any NCAA rules violations occurred, is there actually a story here? I think probably there is, but it's probably not the one that the complainant or the Times would like to examine, that being the decline of academic rigor across all majors, and across all institutions. One need only look at the recent Jeff Goldstein/Deb Frisch donnybrook and marvel that this unstable and dim woman has managed to carve out for herself a quite comfortable living in higher ed. [Update--related Big Armed thoughts here. 2nd Update--And for the love of all that's holy, is STILL going on.] Maybe that's where we should be looking--just how DO universities fill vacancies, and just how easy IS it for the mentally deficient to obtain a degree in the first place, and just why is it that these types of people invariably wind up being so far to the left philosophically that they would make Lenin sorta jumpy? And maybe we should ask why the Times seems so unwilling to ask these questions.
I am reminded of the press conference back when Joe Namath was at Alabama, and a reporter shouted at him, 'Hey, Joe--what classes are you taking down at Alabama, basket weaving?"
"No, journalism."
Posted by Terry Oglesby at July 14, 2006 09:02 AMWhile I can understand your defense of Auburn and the system in place there, I have a real problem with courses like directed readings or what ever they are called. It seems that the use of those courses is part of the culture of a discipline. In our part of the university we only do them in extreme circumstances. Partly this attitude is because we recognize the wide disparity of the effort required for these courses.
My personal view is that directed readings course are problems waiting to happen
Thanks, Jim--this was actually Jim's email to me earlier in the day and I asked if he wouldn't mind posting it.
I just wanted to make clear that I have no love for directed studies shenanigans, or for the fact that Auburn allows them to exist. What I wrote back to Jim was this:
"Actually, I agree with you--my only intent was to point out that this kind of crap has become increasingly common, and not only to accomodate athletes. I wouldn't mind it a bit if they were done away with, or if there were some sort of enforceable guidelines in place. But I doubt that would happen--academic freedom and all. It seems a system ripe for abuse."
The irksome thing isn't that it's Auburn's ox getting gored, or their athletes; to me it's that higher education seems to be working very hard to be neither higher nor education. This thing with heavy reliance on directed studies and with athletes tending toward less rigorous course offerings is merely a symptom of something more pernicious.
But running to the New York Times with it does nothing but further hide the problem by allowing them to frame it as a problem with big-time athletic programs. Again, I have a feeling that were a professor to complain that too many students in a victim-group-oriented course of study were being given easy assignments to help them graduate, the media would be praising the effort as a way of helping them overcome the racist and sexist hegemony of outdated concepts such as "grading."
I just think that before folks get their panties in a wad about it, they might better look on down the road and see what the repercussions might be of cracking down on the ability of professors to offer directed studies. Personally, I think there NEEDS to be more oversight, but again, I still believe in those old outdated concepts like showing up for class, being tested, and being graded based upon my knowledge.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at July 14, 2006 02:29 PM