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"Some college administrators seem so distracted with fund raising, academic infighting, and community initiatives that they set up their emergency communications departments very poorly. Training is poor to nonexistent, secretaries are pressed into service with tremendous responsibilities for running 'notification systems' 24/7 and on weekends because no one else knows how to do it and the administration won’t pay for additional staff. Procedures are seat-of-the-pants and dependent on HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion), except when something like Virginia Tech happens and there is some sort of scramble to do something different." --Donna
Most Colleges Avoid Risk Management, Report Says
Jill Biden Shines a Global Spotlight on American Community Colleges
Speaking at a Unesco conference in Paris, the vice president’s wife stressed the importance of two-year institutions to the nation’s educational goals.
Connecticut Public Colleges Lose 200 Professors to Early Retirement
Administrators are scrambling to plug holes in their course schedules for fall, with most expecting to do so by hiring more adjuncts or increasing class sizes.
U. of Georgia Paid 2 Fraternities $2.4-Million to Relocate, Contracts Show
The two were among five with houses on property where the university plans to build new academic facilities.
New Allegations in Admissions Controversy at U. of Illinois Suggest Ex-Provost Played a Role
Linda P.B. Katehi, the incoming chancellor of the University of California at Davis, has insisted she knew nothing of the admission of politically connected applicants at Illinois.
Sonoma State U. Foundation May Lose $350,000 on Loan to Former Board Member
The foundation will be forced to issue fewer scholarships in the 2010-11 academic year because of a diminished endowment, a university official said.
College Suspends Student for Working in Gay Pornography | 58
President Obama's Visit to Notre Dame Carries Barely a Hint of Controversy That Preceded It | 58
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November 14, 2008
After Long Battle, NCAA Publishes Guidelines to Protect Pregnant Athletes
It took a firestorm of negative media coverage and many years of needling, but the National Collegiate Athletic Association has finally suggested some guidelines for protecting pregnant athletes.
The guidelines, approved by the NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors in January, ensure that pregnant athletes do not lose their scholarships for one year.
Over the next few days, the NCAA plans to notify athletics departments about a new Web site and other materials they can share with female athletes about the risks of becoming pregnant and how to avoid medical complications of pregnancy while playing.
The guidelines recommend that NCAA institutions add such information to their student-athlete handbooks, but do not require it. In other words, there are no consequences for failure to share the information.
Elizabeth Sorensen, a nursing professor at Wright State University who pressured the NCAA to develop the guidelines and later helped write them, is grateful for the “huge first step.” But she says the NCAA didn’t go far enough.
“I think it will take five more years (if ever) before we actually see a cultural change toward viewing college-athlete pregnancy as a health event, not a moral event, and before athletes actually feel comfortable stepping forward and asking for help,” she wrote in an e-mail message. “I’d like to see the NCAA make direct efforts to reach out to student-athletes, not just their schools, with this knowledge.” —Brad Wolverton
Posted on Friday November 14, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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My wife is a former division 1 softball pitcher, so I’m happy to see the NCAA take steps to help protect these wonderful athletes.
— Brandon Mendelson Nov 14, 02:50 PM #
Long overdue!
— AMB Nov 14, 03:42 PM #
What’s the gestation period on a set of public NCAA rules/guidelines?
— John M. Hays Nov 14, 03:46 PM #
Paternity leave time for fathers on NCAA teams? Just a thought…
— Pete Nov 14, 03:53 PM #
Just as a general rule, isn’t the offer of a scholarship a sort of contract where each party promises to provide a service? I promise to attend all the football games, practices, weight room sessions, study sessions, keep up my GPA, and stay out of trouble, and in return the school promises to give me free tuition, room & board, and book & laundry money.
When an athelete becomes pregnant and ends up having to curtail her involvement in the sport, isn’t she breaking her end of the contract? If so, why should the school be required to keep her on scholarship? How do you explain this to the young woman who is playing on the team without a scholarship who might now be called upon to fill the role that the pregnant athelete previously played? Where is the fairness in that?
— J. Ward Nov 14, 04:53 PM #
Pete, if paternity leave were available, in the case of an unmarried female, would more or fewer men admit to their paternity?
— Betty Stevens Nov 14, 05:16 PM #
J. Ward, thank you. I believe the causes of pregnancy are well-determined. Except for rape, pregnancy is the consequence of a decision that a female student-athlete makes. Shouldn’t she decide to wait until a more appropriate stage of her life to devote the necessary energy and focus to her children?
Why should universities have to enable young women who likely cannot adequately support their children, to have them?
— Otto Nov 15, 06:34 AM #
J.Ward & Otto:
What if a young male athlete engages in some risky behavior, and he becomes incapacitated? Has he failed to hold up his end of the contract? Should he lose his scholarship, too? It seems as though our rah-rah, male athlete-worshipping culture has a long history of excusing all sorts of “boys will be boys” behavior and regarding its often tragic yet usually completely foreseeable consequences as unfortunate accidents. It’s too bad that you are unwilling to extend that same compassion to young women.
— JS Nov 15, 01:37 PM #
Hey JS – As far as I can tell, especially in the highly publicized cases, the “boys who will be boys” who have incapacitating accidents because of their poor choices do lose their scholarships. Additionally, compassion is a two-way street. Where’s the love for the replacement player that J. Ward asked about — both from the program and from the young woman who chose to have the baby? I know, I know, requiring accountability before the fact isn’t PC. However, if I asked you to invest in a program and promised a return on the investment, then failed to provide you with that return or even to return your principle (because of poor choices I made) and then asked, “Where’s the compassion?” With everything else being equal, you’d really say that’s ok?
— Virginia Nose Picker Nov 15, 03:36 PM #
“Shouldn’t she decide to wait until a more appropriate stage of her life to devote the necessary energy and focus to her children?”
Would you say this about a male athlete who had a child during the course of his scholarship? I’m surprised in this day and age anyone would assume a woman only has enough energy to either focus on her children or do something else, but not both.
Post-pregnancy issues aside, chastising female athletes who become pregnant (probably mostly unintentionally) is very much a morality judgment, and unless we also extend that judgment to male athletes who happen to get someone pregnant, it is also a sexist judgment.
The nursing professor quoted is right to frame athlete pregnancies as health events, not moral events.
— Rami Nov 15, 05:43 PM #
J. Ward and Otto: Your argument is also used as justification for not hiring women, for paying them less, etc. My grandmother had to put up with the “Let’s not hire her, because she will probably just get pregnant and then not come to work” shit, and I was really hoping that my daughters wouldn’t have to deal with it. But apparently that line of logic isn’t dead yet.
But since it won’t go away, I propose that men be held responsible for their actions. No woman gets pregnant without the help of a man. Therefore, any male athlete who produces a baby needs to give up his scholarship and start raising that baby. And if he refuses, he should be liable to the same kinds of penalties that women are liable to when they neglect their children.
— Shar Nov 16, 10:38 PM #
Hear, hear, Shar!
Wow. I wasn’t surprised to see the sexist sentiment of “women deserve punishment for pregnancy” on ESPN.com. But here? Where people are supposed to be educated?!
So, to the uneducated in these matters: women can double up on birth control methods and STILL BECOME PREGNANT. So essentially, treating unexpected pregnancy as as irresponsible behavior is flat-out antiquated and wrong. Get real!
— madame ojo Nov 17, 11:25 AM #
Comment 12: “treating unexpected pregnancy as as irresponsible behavior is flat-out antiquated and wrong.”
Poppycock. It might be fashionable and oh-so-progressive to pretend that there should be no consequences for your decisions, but don’t try to tell me that unexpected pregnancies from unmarried college kids is anything other than “irresponsible behavior.” Just because you lack the moral grounding to recognize right from wrong doesn’t mean that you get to impose your trendy amorality on the rest of us.
And no, I never argued that women “deserve punishment” for pregnancy; I merely argued that if a student athelete can’t hold up his or her end of a scholarship bargain, he or she ought to face the consequence of losing that scholarship.
What if a student receives an academic scholarship based upon his hardwork and intelligence, then decides to spend every night drinking beer. Let’s say for argument’s sake that the student is 21 years old, so drinking for him is entirely legal. If the student’s academic performace begins to slip, does the school have the right to take away his scholarship? If so, how is that any different from the female student who chooses to be sexually active? Don’t actions have consequences, or are we trying to create the society where anything and everything goes and the only sin is actually applying standards and judgement?
— J. Ward Nov 17, 02:14 PM #
And, by the way, to answer the other questions: JS (comment 8), I beleive that male atheletes who behave in risky off-the-field behavior already face the possibility of losing a scholarship if they have a serious injury. A young man from my hometown lost his basketball scholarship when he messed up his knee while crashing his motorcycle.
Rami (comment 10), the major difference here is that a male athelete who sires a child doesn’t have his body change and therefore doesn’t have to sit out a couple of months of the athletic season. Unfair maybe, but blame biology. You missed my original point which is why should a school have to honor a scholarship for an athelete who is unable to perform purely because of personal decisions that she made.
— J. Ward Nov 17, 02:24 PM #
J. Ward – I understood your point, and you are right about one thing. It is an unfair point. Thankfully, when people work hard to make unfair situations a little more fair, we get guidelines like these in place.
On a related note, using the “blame biology” argument doesn’t work if you are going to then turn around and chastise young adults for wanting to have sex before they get married (usually in mid to late 20s). Biologically most of us just aren’t programmed to hold off that long.
— Rami Nov 17, 03:06 PM #
J. Ward, I see that we operate from a vastly different set of assumptions. I assume that college students are essentially adults, you know, legally. Adults, my friend, have sex as a matter of course (outside of religious orders and other special circumstances). To treat men and women differently on this matter is plainly discriminatory, in the disparate impact vein (where a policy has an effect on a particular class of people). If you want to regulate the sexual behavior of athletes on scholarship, then it must apply to both men and women.
Since I don’t hear you advocating for this, punishing women for the, yes, biological fact that they can get pregnant is antiquated and wrong. I see you ignored this earlier, but as I said, sexually active women can be, literally, on multiple forms of birth control, thereby exercising caution and responsibility, yet still become pregnant despite those precautions. So yes, you are in your assessment, advocating for the punishment of women for having the ability to become pregnant.
— madame ojo Nov 17, 04:21 PM #
I’m the co-author of the NCAA’s materials on pregnancy, and I might be able to shed some light here.
In order to comply with the law and treat pregnancy in a gender-neutral manner, athletics departments must treat pregnancy like any other temporary disability. When a male student-athlete makes a mistake that renders him ill or injured, (motorcycle accident or contracting mono), he under NCAA rules he will still receive his scholarship & medical care, the team will make accomodations for his injury during workouts, he will qualify for a waiver or “Red Shirt” and he will still receive academic support.
When a male athlete’s partner is pregnant, he is still recruited, he does not lose his team membership or his athletics scholarship, and the school will help him progress toward completing his degree. He would not expect to be the subject of elittling, shunning or shaming.
Although athletes are not employees, as a general matter pregnant employees have come to expect that they will not be forced to stop working arbitraily, they will not lose their jobs due to pregnancy, and they will be ble to return to work when it is medically safe to do so. Students, including athletes, should have the same expectations regarding their educational pursuits.
Finally, pregnancy discrimination cannot be carried out under the guise of enforcing rules against premarital sex UNLESS a school is willing to assume the onerous (some would argue impossible) task of similarly punishing males and non-pregnant females who engage in premarital sex. Otherwise, only women would be punished for engaging in premarital sex, since only women become pregnant as a result of the mutual behavior.
Pregnancy need not be the demise of a woman’s athletic career. Dara Torres is testiment to that. There are 20 mothers on the Olympic Team, over 30 mothers in the WNBA and 28 mothers in the LPGA. Ignoring the reality of pregnancy in athletics — for men and women — results in forced abortion, student-drop out, hiding pregnancy and infant homocide. It is a disservice to the educational mission of athletics.
— Nancy Hogshead-Makar, Professor of Law Nov 18, 02:15 PM #