NARP experience at SLACs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So does a SLAC or any college/university really need to field a full range of sports at the highest levels (in D1, D2, D3, etc.)? I'm a big believer in a sound mind in a sound body. But wouldn't that be better achieved by offering more kids an opportunity to play a variety of sports in college, even at an entry level, than spending your time and capital on recruiting the best squash players whose parents have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their training leading up to college?

The alumni want the sports. The administrators want the sports.

Sports are not going away in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So does a SLAC or any college/university really need to field a full range of sports at the highest levels (in D1, D2, D3, etc.)? I'm a big believer in a sound mind in a sound body. But wouldn't that be better achieved by offering more kids an opportunity to play a variety of sports in college, even at an entry level, than spending your time and capital on recruiting the best squash players whose parents have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their training leading up to college?

It’s a reasonable question but these parts of the school have more vociferous defenders than critics. So they just perpetuate if not grow.

There is an element as well that having competitive sports draws these kids to the school. They want to have the opportunity to continue to compete athletically at a high level. So it’s like a hotel with a great fitness room. Basically an extra amenity. In this case the amenity attracts full pay students which is helpful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So does a SLAC or any college/university really need to field a full range of sports at the highest levels (in D1, D2, D3, etc.)? I'm a big believer in a sound mind in a sound body. But wouldn't that be better achieved by offering more kids an opportunity to play a variety of sports in college, even at an entry level, than spending your time and capital on recruiting the best squash players whose parents have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their training leading up to college?

The alumni want the sports. The administrators want the sports.

Sports are not going away in college.

I think that response is a little facile as we are currently going through something of a sea change in college admissions. Why do administrators want the sports? And I don't think the big college football programs are going away anytime because they're big money makers, but a SLAC golf or equestrian program? Is maintaining that program but making it all walk on going to be a huge hit to alumni giving? It's the SLACs where the quantity of sports leads to a large percentage of the student body being recruited athletes who do not tend to come from diverse backgrounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So does a SLAC or any college/university really need to field a full range of sports at the highest levels (in D1, D2, D3, etc.)? I'm a big believer in a sound mind in a sound body. But wouldn't that be better achieved by offering more kids an opportunity to play a variety of sports in college, even at an entry level, than spending your time and capital on recruiting the best squash players whose parents have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their training leading up to college?

The alumni want the sports. The administrators want the sports.

Sports are not going away in college.

I think that response is a little facile as we are currently going through something of a sea change in college admissions. Why do administrators want the sports? And I don't think the big college football programs are going away anytime because they're big money makers, but a SLAC golf or equestrian program? Is maintaining that program but making it all walk on going to be a huge hit to alumni giving? It's the SLACs where the quantity of sports leads to a large percentage of the student body being recruited athletes who do not tend to come from diverse backgrounds.

Because sports = jobs. It's like the military industrial complex or any bureaucracy, just grows and grows and grows. The more things a school does, the more people they hire, the more administrators they need.

[Anonymous]

At a SLAC? It's not like coaches and admissions offices won't still be needed. I don't find this terribly convincing without some evidence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you look at rosters from basically all nescac schools, nearly all students went to private school. College admission isn’t equal or equitable. I don’t know what to even say. What will opening this secret and releasing the Amherst data do? Suddenly recruit lower class or impoverished students to suddenly play soccer really well and go to Amherst? It isn’t equitable.

I don't know what to say to someone who complains that sports isn't "equal or equitable". WTF? Obviously you never played sports and never had a kid who played sports. All athletes are not equal. Some are better than others. If you are good enough to make the team, then you are by definition not equal to - you are better than - all the other kids who tried out for the team.

Soccer is a particularly poor example of a "privileged" sport. It is absolutely egalitarian. Dirty urchins in a favela can play as long as they have a ball and an open dusty lot. If they are not getting into Amherst it's not because they don't play soccer well, it's because they don't also have the academic chops that Amherst requires athletes to have before recruiting them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

“The demise of affirmative action poses an existential threat to a vibrant, diverse, and inclusive liberal arts institution,” Reyes said. “To lament this terrible event, and simultaneously to continue athletic admissions that preference rich white people, is racist.”

lmao talk about hysterical nonsense.

The motion was introduced by Professor of Economics Jessica Reyes

"Currently, my teaching and research energies are almost entirely focused on antiracist work. I believe it is necessary to engage with our role as economists in maintaining the fiction that American capitalism is a system of meritocracy and freedom, rather than a system of oppression and unfreedom – racial patriarchal capitalism... I have incorporated antiracist content and pluralist economic content into the economics thesis process and all of my existing courses, and I have developed three new courses: Economics of Race and Gender, AntiRacist AntiEconomics, and Pluralist Economics."

Yeah so she's a communist zealot just as you'd expect. Imagine paying $80k a year for that nonsense.

Bless your heart. Tough to package that much stupid into a single post, but you did it.

News flash: working against systemic racism (for which the evidence in literally every sphere of American life is overwhelming) doesn’t make you a zealot or a communist. Perhaps you should attend college so you can learn what those words mean.

Systemic racism does not actually exist, it was invented by communists in order to justify redistribution of wealth. This woman is absolutely a zealot and a communist. As I have a PhD myself, I know the type very well. You obviously never went to college, or you would recognize it yourself.

[Anonymous]

Fairest solution is to keep football / basketball / baseball / soccer, i.e. team sports with socioeconomically diverse participants, that people actually pay money for to watch.

Ditch the "aristocratic sports" that are wealthy prep-school pipeline sports like squash, golf, lacrosse, water polo, equestrian, sailing, etc.

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/why-some-seats-at-elite-colleges-only-go-to-prep-school-students-60d3a9de

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

“The demise of affirmative action poses an existential threat to a vibrant, diverse, and inclusive liberal arts institution,” Reyes said. “To lament this terrible event, and simultaneously to continue athletic admissions that preference rich white people, is racist.”

lmao talk about hysterical nonsense.

The motion was introduced by Professor of Economics Jessica Reyes

"Currently, my teaching and research energies are almost entirely focused on antiracist work. I believe it is necessary to engage with our role as economists in maintaining the fiction that American capitalism is a system of meritocracy and freedom, rather than a system of oppression and unfreedom – racial patriarchal capitalism... I have incorporated antiracist content and pluralist economic content into the economics thesis process and all of my existing courses, and I have developed three new courses: Economics of Race and Gender, AntiRacist AntiEconomics, and Pluralist Economics."

Yeah so she's a communist zealot just as you'd expect. Imagine paying $80k a year for that nonsense.

Bless your heart. Tough to package that much stupid into a single post, but you did it.

News flash: working against systemic racism (for which the evidence in literally every sphere of American life is overwhelming) doesn’t make you a zealot or a communist. Perhaps you should attend college so you can learn what those words mean.

Systemic racism does not actually exist, it was invented by communists in order to justify redistribution of wealth. This woman is absolutely a zealot and a communist. As I have a PhD myself, I know the type very well. You obviously never went to college, or you would recognize it yourself.

Agree, does not exist any longer and no one can really explain what it means. They always talk about redlining but that was decades ago.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, there's no way that things that happened decades ago could affect us now...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, there's no way that things that happened decades ago could affect us now...

so what is systemic racism? the ripple effect of prior systemic racism? the logic here is that the US will always be systemically racist because it once was

[Anonymous]

You have some issues with your logic. We could make changes to our society now (e.g., reducing systemic racism) that would benefit people now and several generations hence. The fact that we are influenced by social phenomena of the past does not make our society immutable and unable to be improved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You have some issues with your logic. We could make changes to our society now (e.g., reducing systemic racism) that would benefit people now and several generations hence. The fact that we are influenced by social phenomena of the past does not make our society immutable and unable to be improved.

Slavery is gone, discrimination is gone (except for Asians), redlining is gone. So where is the systemic racism and how do we reduce it?

[Anonymous]

Wesleyan is a “big” SLAC, so there are more “NARPs” relative to athletes (I never heard that acronym before, but anyone who went to a SLAC will immediately understand the utility of the term!)

The athletes certainly hung out together, but were not totally insular. They were not in their own dorm, and I lived with some sporty friends as a sophomore and junior (musician friends as a senior). Also I wouldn’t say that athletes are particularly revered at Wes. There’s lots of different kids with lots of different interests - strong in arts and academics. My “sporty” friends from Wes mostly went the MBA/Wall Street route. Everyone else is a lawyer/doctor/professor/non-profit/arts/Hollywood.

[Anonymous]

I learned something new today.

NARP

It's enunciation is like TERF. It's meant to be dismissive and derogatory. That's the point.

Appreciate the heads up.