Prof. To JuCo V-Ball Player: "You Play, You Fail"

http://msn.foxsports.com/buzzer/story/school-forcing-player-to-miss-title-game-112013

Hope there is no D-B here. But this Jr. Coll. Biology prof is out of line here, I would think (even if, as the Jr. College president said, instructors are allowed to run their classes as they see fit."). I think he is just being a hard-ass for whatever reason (....because he can...?). I also wondered if any of this girl's teammates were having the same issue.

 

If you're missing four classes in a semester because the demands of your junior college volleyball program are that demanding, you and the volleyball program are doing it wrong.

 

Four classes over a semester? Christ, I used to miss four classes over a two-week period and I didn't even play volleyball.

 

OK ... an indication of how seriously you took your education, probably.

She missed three classes and the professor gave her a warning. She missed another class.

You're there to study, you're not there to go pro in volleyball. The athletic department there consists of a bunch of idiots who don't give a shit about school.

 

Bullshit.

 

The story doesn't say how much she plays, which would be helpful. Then again, they are a No. 16 seed facing the No. 1 in the match she will be there for, so this probably has no real impact, anyway.

Also interesting that she will be transferring next semester and that they couldn't even confirm the name of the professor. It reads like they are pretty sure that it is the guy they named, but they couldn't even lock down that detail.

Sounds like something to fill a slow news day to me.

 

STUDENT-athletes, remember??

 

I applaud the school for allowing the prof to grade as he sees fit. As much as I love athletics, college is for learning, not sports.

I'm sure the prof told all students at the start of semester what his expectations were; miss class, you get docked. Let's remember to go back to the start, not focus on the end. If he said that, then the student should have dropped the class or picked another prof. That's how our university operated. Get your syllabus at the start along with how grading would take place. If there was a class that was based on attendance, I, um, would choose another prof.

 

I've been on the faculty at three DI institutions ... in all three, athletics-related absences were officially excused ones. Meaning I could write the syllabus any way I saw fit, but if push came to shove the athlete's absence was going to be excused. Kinda surprising this isn't the case in this instance. Perhaps this school is a relative newbie when it comes to awarding athletics scholarships?

 

This is junior college Division II. I daresay they haven't had a tremendous reason previously to formulate a plan for absences based on athletic events.

I also wonder about the "scholarships" that the schools are giving out. I was not aware that juco Division II even offered scholarships. And then someone sprang for a flight to get her to the match and back on time?

Whole story sounds iffy.

 

Yep, that's how it works where I teach. I've had volleyball players miss several more class meetings than is allowed, but before every absence, the compliance department would email professors and let them know the players would be missing class. Most of them didn't miss any other classes, just those that took them out of town for games. I would have been in a bad way if I had failed them based on absences.

On the other hand, I had a football student manager miss class all the damn time because the football team was supposedly leaving on a Thursday for a Saturday game, or some crap like that. His grandmother was a regent at the school and he had other influential family members and thought he could get away with anything. He got a well-deserved D in the class, and no one said anything about it.