Tell your professors face to face every time you will be gone, I urged the baseball team, and express your eagerness to make up any missed work. Even more important, when you?re in class, show the professor that you are there to learn. Just as you know how to position yourselves on the diamond, learn how to position yourself in the classroom — front and center, preferably, and definitely not in the back corner of the room with a bunch of other athletes. Just as you use your eyes and set your body to get ready before every pitch, use your eyes and your posture in the classroom to let the professor know that you?re fully engaged with what‘sgoing on there.

[…]

Coach Cleanthes and I both wondered whether, after a full day of baseball and with a Sunday game looming, the team would want to spend more than a few minutes touring the library‘smuseum. As it turned out, after two hours the museum guards had to round up the players — students — and tell them, sorry, but they had to leave, it was closing time. The baseball team‘strip to the Clinton library may have been the first occasion in the history of the college when an academic event was woven into an athletics road trip. It won’t be the last.–Michael Nelson —A Win-Win-Win Situation (Inside Higher Ed)

A thought-provoking, eye-opening article. I can’t argue with the good intentions and potential benefits of such an approach. But the first comment appended to it took the words right out of my mouth:

[D]o athletes really need more attention — more than students in other groups on campus?

What about students in the drama department getting ready for the spring musical? Do single parents who also work part-time need special understanding from faculty, especially during cold and flu season? How about students who are the first in their families to go to a four-year college?

What wonders the newspaper staff or lit mag staff could accomplish with this kind of support network! Ah, well. I’m fortunate enough to have work-study hours to pay some of the most dedicated members of the newspaper staff, and some staff members take a course that earns them credit for their work.