It’s the day of your big test, you’ve studied hard, and you can’t help but notice that the student athlete that sits next to you isn’t present for the test. They have a game. Does the student athlete have privileges that regular students don’t?
Although athletes are amongst a select group of students that pre-register for their core and elective classes earlier than most of the student body, this seems to be the end of their privileges.
Jennifer Chapla ’05, a member of the women’s soccer team, said athletic privileges are, “Just pre-registration. I don’t think that it’s too powerful. We don’t even get to park in the athletic center lot without getting tickets!”
If a student has to miss a class because of a conflict with a sporting event, they follow a release time policy. At a determined time, the athlete is excused from any classes they have so they can leave for games or meets. The absence is counted as an excused absence, but it is up to the athletes to make up any work that is missed.
For example, Deng Gai ’05, a member of the men’s basketball team, said, “I have a game tomorrow, but I have a test, so I have to make it up the next day.”
MaryAnn Pallazzi, the coordinator of programs for student athletes, said there are no extra privileges associated with being a student athlete, besides pre-registration. Pre-registration allows athletes to work their classes around their practice schedules.
Christine Mayer ’05, a member of the diving team, said that beside pre-registration the only privilege she received was, “coming to Fairfield as a freshman and automatically having a set group of people to hang out with.”
If an athlete is having trouble with a class, Pallazzi refers them to the dean of student services, where they would be placed in the peer-tutoring program. However, this is not a special perk of being an athlete, any student at Fairfield University can utilize the tutoring program.
Occasionally, when a peer tutor can’t be found on campus, Pallazzi said that she would go to outside sources to find a tutor that would suit the athletes’ academic needs. However she said, “that is not frequently the case. It usually happens in the summertime, since some student athletes have to take summer school classes for various reasons.”
Deng Gai ’05, a member of the men’s basketball team said, “Some people think we have it easier, but that not true. Tonight I had to go to practice, leave to grab some dinner, then go to my class. We’re doing two jobs here.”
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