It was at Linda’s Bar and Grill on Franklin Street.
It was a Friday afternoon and supposed to be a time for chitchat after a hectic week.
But a group of people decided to make use of this time to talk about something much more important than gossip — the future of student-athletes’ academics at UNC, as well as the whole country.
All of these conversations come from the Wainstein report, which has been talked about countless times over the past few weeks, but no clear decision has been made for the future of student-athletes’ academics.
The Daily Tar Heel’s editorial board, representatives from the Student Government and professors and students from UNC met to continue this serious conversation in a relaxed way, trying to spark new thoughts as well as solve the current problem.
Opinion editor Henry Gargan said the response he got from most UNC administrators is to either provide student-athletes with more academic support or adjust their practice times.
An editorial in Wednesday’s paper proposed a plan that student-athletes should be provided with a choice of whether to enroll as full-time students. This would give them the chance to pursue a degree instead of being compelled to do so.
At the beginning of the forum, Gargan explained the reasons behind the proposal.
“By giving them the opportunity to decide when they (do the degree),” Gargan said. “That education will be better than the one they received while working many hours a week on their athletics.”
Anthropology professor and chairman Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld said he got an email from faculty chairman Bruce Cairns right after the Wainstein report came out, and Cairns encouraged conversation.
“Bruce Cairns blew up the agendas that we could talk. I’ve never seen anything like that," he said.
Student Body President Andrew Powell said he has talked to many student-athletes who thought their efforts were devalued after the Oct. 31 faculty council meeting.
This may not be the only challenge student-athletes are facing.
Colloredo-Mansfeld said he feels the student-athletes in his class are exhausted and becoming isolated from University life. Therefore, setting the terms of their engagement in college life and letting student-athletes know “we want you to be a part of everything here” is crucial.
He said administrators have been talking about the possibility of offering academic credit for student-athletes’ leadership and service. However, he worried that doing this could limit studying time even more.
Gargan said he has hesitations about this idea.
“Not saying that our student-athletes don’t care about the community,” he said. “But the service component of that is, in large, part of the brand of college athletics.”
He said he would like to see student government lead the discussion about the future of student-athletes and their academics.
"You have athletes that are athletes and then they’re also sort of being told, this is what you have to do to remain eligible and by and large yes, they want an education, but they should be, we think, able to sort of bargain a little bit, given everything they are creating for the University."
university@dailytarheel.com
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