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UD is...
"Salty." (Scott McLemee)
"Unvarnished." (Phi Beta Cons)
"Splendidly splenetic." (Culture Industry)
"Except for University Diaries, most academic blogs are tedious."
(Rate Your Students)
"I think of Soltan as the Maureen Dowd of the blogosphere,
except that Maureen Dowd is kind of a wrecking ball of a writer,
and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
politics, but she's pretty fabulous, so who gives a damn?"
(Tenured Radical)

Monday, June 11, 2007

It's Not How Sleazy You Make It...

...it's how you make it sleaze. And UD, you know, is an aficionado of sleaze served up by the finest Italian hands.



Example [SOS commentary in red.]:

In the course of its investigation [of schools throughout the Maricopa County Community College District], the Tribune interviewed dozens of past and current athletes and coaches. A reporter attempted to attend numerous [academic-credit] coaching classes but found only one meeting at its scheduled time and place. ... Typically, [when reporters went to the locations of classes at the scheduled times,] the classrooms were empty, the lights off. [These are best understood as courses in ontology: What is "being"? What would a "non-being" class look like?] The newspaper also reviewed course outlines and other material from coaching classes offered this school year.

During the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years, MCCCD data shows almost 1,000 athletes enrolled in 64 coaching classes at the Mesa, Scottsdale, South Mountain and Glendale colleges. Thirty of those classes contained only players.

Athletes made up 75 percent of all students who took coaching classes, the data shows.

“A lot of them aren’t going to be coaches, but they’re taking it because they enjoy that class,” said Amy Goff, head of SCC’s physical education department.
[Fine Italian Sleaze: The kids are okay!]

They also get good grades.

Ninety-nine percent of the athletes who completed coaching classes got passing grades. That means 951 students passed and only four failed, the data shows.

In all health and P.E. classes, only 88 percent of the athletes passed.

Maria Harper-Marinick, the district’s vice chancellor for academic affairs, said there is nothing wrong with a coach running a class as a team practice so long as the required material is covered. The required material for the coaching classes is generic she noted, saying mainly that students must learn how to produce a “motivated team.” [Fine Italian Sleaze: There's no real 'material' here, see -- This is a college course in... er... whatever you do to produce a motivated team...] The district refused a Tribune records request for copies of written exams from coaching classes held last school year. Pete Kushibab, MCCCD’s general counsel, said the release of past tests would undermine the integrity of future coaching classes. [
Really Fine Italian Sleaze: Academic integrity is what it's all about! If you so much a lay a finger on a previous test, and then you publish even one challenging question from it, our students might read it in your paper and fail to learn the material...]

If a coach chooses to teach using the same on-field techniques for class as he would for practice, “that is considered teaching methodology,” Harper-Marinick said. “In our system, it’s up to the instructor to decide for that period of time, that was the best use of time to convey information, to elicit learning.” [Fine Italian Sleaze + excellent use of pedagogical buzzwords -- It's all about the unstinting effort to elicit learning... Calling weekly ball practice a college course is part of the freedom to implement your own teaching methodology...]

... College officials insist that athletic directors are not creating classes simply to keep their players eligible.

“Let me make it very clear. Exercise science is an academic program,” said Ann Stine, chairwoman of MCC’s exercise science department. “Athletics is student services. They’re separate. Not the same.” [This bit isn't sleaze so much as, to vary Keats a little, the Vehemence is Truth, Truth Vehemence technique, in which saying something really really forcefully -- I'm gonna make this really clear -- somehow equals that thing being true.]

... [One coach/professor] balked when asked about the academic value of teaching his players these subjects. “Now you’re questioning my academic freedom,” Giovando said. [Very very fine Italian sleaze. It's called academic freedom, fucker!]





---east valley tribune---

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