Last updated on 05/14/2014
5/14/2014: This was the IAC’s first explicitly public meeting. There were 3 reporters, a UO alum, and two Senators including Rob Kyr. I think the transparency helped make things go relatively smoothly. Actually, just having a meeting helped – I think this was only the 4th all year – it took a long time to get the Chair, Rob Illig (Law) to agree to have it. We passed 4 motions involving getting information from Rob Mullens and the coaches about sexual violence prevention training, their policies and procedures for deciding when to suspend players, and about the secretive “Athlete Special Admit” committee.
5/13/2014: Rob Mullens is clutching at straws. The public meeting of the IAC is tomorrow, Wed 3/14, 9-11 AM, in the 4th floor Lewis Lounge of the Law School. This evening AD Rob Mullens released a few documents related to the athletic departments’ sexual violence prevention training efforts.
The Ducks don’t do much, and now they are trying to blame that on the faculty who serve on the UO Senate’s Committee on Courses. From the AD report prepared on April 10, a month after President Gottfredson learned about the alleged assaults, and almost a month before Andrew Greif finally made them public:
Sexual Violence Prevention
Athletic Department
4/10/14
… Fall 2013 The FHS 199 course which approximately 90% of first-year student-athletes took was not offered due to the denial of the course by the Committee on Courses. The course and others similar in nature are in holding until the Committee writes the policy to allow for these courses to exist to their approval. This course was the primary method for character development for student-athletes including topics such as (values, goal setting, cultural awareness, and healthy relationships). 1 hour for Healthy Relationships, 5 class hours for character education.
Summer 2013 The FHS 409 course which works directly with student-athlete leaders was not offered due to the denial of the course by the Committee on Courses. The course and others similar in nature are in holding until the Committee writes the policy to allow for these courses to exist to their approval. This course was another method for character development of student-athletes with specific topics such as bystander intervention and team culture.
It will be an interesting meeting. The full Athletic Department report on its efforts is here [Link fixed, thanks] For an idea of what the cancelled class was really about, read the syllabus here, and watch the final project videos the student-athletes posted on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fhs+199
For more info, you should contact UO’s Faculty Athletics Representative Jim O’Fallon, here, or Duck spokesperson Craig Pintens, here.
“This course was the primary method for character development for student-athletes including topics such as (values, goal setting, cultural awareness, and healthy relationships).”
Primary method of character development? WTF.
It’s hard to take Mullens seriously.
Courses like this were not approved because they are bullshit. Not every activity or service to students is worthy of credit and these don’t pass the smell test for what we should be granting ACADEMIC credit for. It’s a convenient way to check a box and offload the costs to students through tuition. If the athletic department is so worried about the “character” of its athletes then it needs to bear the costs of implementing interventions and programs to deal with that issue.
Hiding behind the rejection of it’s bullshit course is a weak excuse.
“until the Committee writes the policy to allow for these courses to exist to their approval”
That’s not how it works. If you propose a bullshit course, it’s not the CoC’s job to do the hard work of developing a legit curriculum for you. Nor to rewrite the rules so your BS course can exist.
Comment of the week. The athletic department taught these courses for 6 years before submitting them for approval. They were supposed to to it after 2.
Certainly there is a history of faculty resisting these sorts of courses out of a motivation to protect academic freedom from creep of moralistic hegemony. Is there any evidence that courses would or did prohibit group sex?
huh?
Word to the wise, this is a crowd that reads a LOT of trying-too-hard term papers. A seven-dollar word like “hegemony” isn’t going to make up for a bogus argument.
The courses got rejected because they didn’t meet minimal standards of academic content. They were easy A’s to keep athletes eligible. Simple as that.
Is this the same Kevin Hornbuckle who filed the OCR complaint against the UO on behalf of the basketball players because their privacy was violated? Or at least someone doing a good job of pretending?
It was a Pass/No Pass class.
As the rhyme goes, boys go to college to get more character development including values, goal setting, cultural awareness, and healthy relationships.
There is absolutely nothing preventing the Athletic Department from providing their own mandatory seminars on “character development for student-athletes including topics such as (values, goal setting, cultural awareness, and healthy relationships)” for athletes.
They couldn’t get it approved for academic credit so they washed their hands of it. That is just a desperate after-the-fact, CYA rationalization. Shame on them.
I used the term hegemony to make the point that all the talk of “diversity” is hypocritical if students are told by faculty how to have sex or how not to have sex. Another term would apply, I suppose. Cultural arrogance. Both students and professors would have very legitimate problems with such a curriculum.
So no, it’s not as simple as athletes taking a course for an easy A.
It is that simple. You are overcomplicating it. These are bullshit courses so athletics can check a box and increase athlete GPA’s. Don’t get bogged down in the “content” of these courses because there isn’t much there.
Kevin, how do you define sexual predation? Is there such a thing in your sexual worldview and if so, could you give an example?
The class was P/NP. No grade. Similar to a PE class.
OK, not grade inflation…just checking a box and racking up easy credits. Is that better?
BS courses certainly exist for the illegitimate purpose of grade inflation for athletes. My point is that any course, graduate or undergraduate that had as its curriculum instructions on with whom and how to have sex would be illegitimate, unless it were taught at Brothel U.
Nonny, sexual predation certainly exists. I have no obligation to prove anything from my “sexual worldview.” Your question smacks of the new sex McCarthyism that is creating a hostile environment at the UO and stripping students of their rights to education.
Oh, please. That’s utter nonsense. Defining sexual predation and being clear on your own terms could possibly help your cause, although it would be a long-shot.
How about you do what you are asking me to do. But do so under your real name and be sure to list your employer or how you make your living. Be clear on your own terms, please.
Arguing from either a position of complete relativism or absolutism is a fool’s errand. The world is a much more nuanced place than you present.
Somewhere between those two extremes lies both sexual predation and consensual erotic choice. You can’t say one exists but not the other.
I entirely agree.
I watched one of the videos from the FHS 199 final projects. From about 3:00-3:30, this one gets a bit offensive. Can’t believe the professor didn’t make the student take it down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Dli8uWzsg
Another exception to FERPA:
Information may be released:
“To the general public, the final results of a disciplinary proceeding, subject to the requirements of §99.39, if the school determines the student is an alleged perpetrator of a crime of violence or non-forcible sex offense and the student has committed a violation of the school’s rules or policies with respect to the allegation made against him or her. (§99.31(a)(14)).”
Therefore, we should request Gottfredson to release documents pertaining to the discipline of the 3 basket ball players. They were disciplined so were assumed to have violated the school’s rules or policies.
I think what we have to collectively do is poke through the FERPA shield they are using so as to reveal what is legitimate under FERPA and what is not.
I think we also have to get records regarding similar situations for non-athletes so we can see if these students were treated differently because they are athletes. Have there been allegations of sexual assault by non-athlete students against other students in the past? How were those handled?
In addition, Gott is either lying about the Clery response or does not understand it. Their timeline says that UOPD was contacted on March 9 (EPD was not contacted until March 13-14).
The Department of Education Handbook on Clery reporting states:
“Crime log entries include all crimes reported to the campus police or security department for the required geographic locations, not just Clery Act crimes.
• The crime log discloses specific information about criminal incidents, not crime statistics.
• The log is designed to disclose crime information on a timelier basis than the annual statistical disclosures. A crime is entered into the log as soon as it is reported to the campus police or security department. This includes crimes that are reported directly to the campus police or security department, as well as crimes that are initially reported to another campus security authority or to a local law enforcement agency who subsequently reports them to the campus police or security department.
It also says incidents must be entered into the log within two days. So, it should have happened before this ever went to EPD. But even if it didn’t, if EPD was notified right away, the act clearly states UOPD has to post to the crime log even if it is report to another agency.
I hope this is followed up by the Coalition.