As a reading specialist at UNC-Chapel Hill, Mary Willingham met athletes who told her they had never read a book and didn’t know what a paragraph was. She said she saw diagnostic tests that showed they were unable to do college-level work. But many of those athletes stayed eligible to play sports, she said, because … Read more
Dr. Fritz Polite, a clinical professor of sport management at the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) and his co-editor Dr. Billy Hawkins from the University of Georgia have completed a book titled Sport, Race, Activism, and Social Change: The Impact of Dr. Harry Edwards’ Scholarship and Service (University Readers: Cognella Publishers, 2011). According to Polite, a … Read more
In January of 2011, the Drake Group and the National College Players’ Association (NCPA) joined forces with CT State Representative Pat Dillon to pass the College Athletes Right to Know Act in Connecticut. This legislation which was first signed into law by California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger, requires colleges and universities to publicly disclose, among other … Read more
From the New York Times By Peter Applebome BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — It’s not like there’s not enough going on at the cottage originally built as housing for shoe company workers. The two parakeets chirp. There’s a birth coming any day for the pregnancy and delivery counseling practice. There are classes to prepare for, a dissertation … Read more
Drake Group officers Jason Lanter, Kadie Otto, and Allen Sack met with consumer advocate Ralph Nader last summer to discuss Nader’s proposal to replace athletic scholarships with need-based financial aid in college sports. According Lanter, the immediate past president of The Drake Group, “Nader’s defense of need-based aid for athletes in big-time college sports places … Read more
Appalachian State University did not violate the academic freedom of a tenured professor who was placed on paid leave after students complained about disparaging remarks they said the professor had made on college athletes and about a film she had showed on pornography, the university’s chancellor has concluded. The chancellor this month rejected a faculty … Read more
The mission of the Drake Group is to defend academic integrity in higher education from the corrosive aspects of commercialized college sports. Vision: The Drake Group vision is to create an atmosphere on college campuses that encourages personal and intellectual growth for all students, and demands excellence and professional integrity from faculty charged with teaching. … Read more
Hutchins Award The Robert Maynard Hutchins Award is given annually to faculty or staff members who take a courageous stand to defend academic integrity at their institutions in response to institutional pressure related to special treatment of athletes, often risking job security in doing so. Robert Maynard Hutchins was the President of the University of … Read more