Drake Group Calls for Congress to Enact College Athlete Protections: A Legislative Proposal
On August 3, 2020, U.S. Senators Cory Booker, Richard Blumenthal, Christopher Murphy, Kirsten Gillibrand, Ron Wyden, Mazie Hirono, and Kamala Harris issued a “College Athletes Bill of Rights” statement that sought to advance justice and opportunity for college athletes and promised future legislation to realize their position. On August 13, they were joined by Senators […]
College Sports’ Bait and Switch
By Dr. Gerald Gurney and Dr. Richard M. Southall Originally published August 9, 2012 Last month, the NCAA announced its latest team Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores, highlighting the institutions whose four-year averages fell below the 900 threshold score. Among the offending teams was notably the University of Connecticut, which will be ineligible for the […]
Professors Must Speak Out: Colleges Can No Longer Afford Athletics as Usual
By Dr. Gerald Gurney and Jerome C. Weber Originally published April 5, 2010 Basketball fans will focus tonight on the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s men’s championship game, but amid the excitement of such competition, attention must be paid to how big-time college sports still operate in ways counter to higher education’s aims. Although the NCAA […]
Stop Lowering the Bar for College Athletes
By Dr. Gerald Gurney Originally published April 10, 2011 For nearly 50 years, the NCAA has debated its minimum academic requirements for first-year students who hope to compete in big-time college sports. In its various attempts to ensure an acceptable level of precollegiate learning and skill competencies, the NCAA has vacillated between lowering and raising […]
Academic Fraud, Athletes and Faculty Responsibility
By Dr. Gerald Gurney and Mary Willingham Originally published July 18, 2014 The National Collegiate Athletic Association rarely admits to the need to revisit an infractions case, and particularly one that strikes at the core of academic integrity issues. So when the NCAA announced an unusual and embarrassing return to the University of North Carolina […]
The NCAA’s Miraculous Graduation Rate!
By Dr. Allen Sack and Dr. Gerald Gurney Originally published May 6, 2019 During the weeks-long buildup to college football’s biggest bowl games last December, it was hard not to notice that many of the teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 were having a lot more success on the gridiron than their players […]
Reflections, 2016-21: A Sequel to an Odyssey of Reform Initiatives, 1986-2015.
Reflections, 2016-21: A Sequel to an Odyssey of Reform Initiatives, 1986-2015. Dr. Frank Splitt, Longtime Drake Group Member and Recipient of the Robert Maynard Hutchins Award has posted a sequel to his 1986-2015 Odyssey of Reform Initiatives. A prolific and nationally respected voice advocating for intercollegiate athletics reform, this new collection of writings continues to […]
Guidelines for Academic Integrity in Athletics
Recent academic scandals related to the intercollegiate athletics programs at a number of the nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher education reveal the absence of policy and practice that would ensure the primacy of academic study and the maintenance of academic integrity by institutions of higher education. The Drake Group believes that each of the […]
Why the NCAA Academic Progress Rate (APR) and the Graduation Success Rate (GSR) should be Abandoned and Replaced with More Effective Academic Metrics
The Drake Group released a position statement that is highly critical of the NCAA’s Division I Academic Metrics. Drake Group President Gerald Gurney argues that “Academic integrity in intercollegiate athletics requires a system of checks and balances, transparent academic metrics and safeguards that ensure that learning occurs, not just that athletic eligibility is maintained.”