Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

30° Evanston, IL
Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Hitting the books

Northwestern ensures its athletes have brawn and brains.

In addition to minimum grade requirements, the athletic department requires freshman varsity athletes to study in the library for six hours every week between Monday and Thursday.

“Sometimes you just don’t feel like going,” said Breanne Smilie, a Weinberg freshman and varsity basketball player. “But it’s so loud in the dorms, and I feel like I never get anything done there. I get more done at the library.”

The six-hour-per-week requirement begins during Fall Quarter and is adjusted according to an athlete’s grades for Winter and Spring quarters. There is no study requirement for athletes after freshman year. The department also offers other types of academic support, including graduate student tutoring after practice and weekly meetings with academic advisors.

According to an October article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the National Collegiate Athletic Association will vote in April on new regulations to penalize or reward Division I schools for their teams’ academic performance. An annual “progress report” would track athletes’ retention rates, eligibility for competition and graduation rates.

Institutions were asked to begin collecting information in the fall, and the NCAA said it would evaluate the schools in four years. Institutions would be punished for poor academic performance by losing scholarships and eligibility for postseason competition.

Before the new regulations were implemented, NU and other Division I schools said they already were committed to ensuring their athletes’ academic success.

“Virtually every Division I school has a study program,” said Margaret Akerstrom, NU’s assistant director of academic services for the athletic department. “But at Northwestern, we do it differently.”

Akerstrom said most schools require teams to study together with coaches and assistants in an athletic facility, but NU requires athletes to study with nonathletes.

“Northwestern has always been in the forefront of ensuring that athletes are integrated with other students,” Akerstrom said.

At Purdue University, another Division I school, athletes study together in a monitored room. Coaches determine the number of study hours per week for each athlete, and the hours are tracked by a card-swiping system.

Ed Howat, assistant athletics director for student services at Purdue, said that the program negatively affects game attendance.

“A lot of students don’t get to know student athletes,” said Howat. “And it’s less likely that they will attend games without a relationship to the athletes.”

Howat said Purdue’s athletic department wouldn’t change its system because its athletes already are encouraged to interact with nonathletes through extracurricular activities.

Kaitie Lenahan, a Weinberg junior and varsity lacrosse player, said she prefers NU’s system to the study program at Purdue.

“If I sat with my team, I’d be too tempted to talk with them. I wouldn’t get any work done,” she said, adding that the requirement helped her structure her schedule.

“There’s so much more to juggle in our daily lives, and we get so exhausted by practice, he said. “The study program kept me focused.”

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Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881
Hitting the books