Editor,
A disastrous House Bill 581 is looming in Santa Fe.
If passed, it will lower and/or set academic entrance and eligibility requirements for student-athletes at UNM and other New Mexico state universities to that of the lowest -- for academic entrance requirements and eligibility -- conference school or lowest school in the NCAA (if the state university isn't in a conference), i.e., to the lowest possible standards.
HB 581 bluntly says, "Let's make it as easy as possible for academically marginal athletes to enter, transfer into or stay eligible in our state universities."
On the proposed bill, no rationale is offered. UNM does not allow out-of-state transfer students to count D-courses at their previous school towards graduation at UNM. The UNM Athletic Department had maintained that the playing field was uneven because all of the MWC schools except for UNM allowed such D-transfers. However, the Athletic Council just learned that only three out of the eight MWC schools allow D-transfers, two of which had the lowest graduation rates (41 percent and 30 percent) in the MWC.
UNM's student-athlete graduation rate is 48 percent, which is fifth out of the eight MWC schools and seven percentage points below the national average for public Division-I schools.
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The playing field is hardly uneven. The proposed bill would allow UNM to accept out-of-state D-transfers and overturn school policy, which requires that fourth-year students gain nine credit hours in the fall semester to compete in the spring.
It says that the Board of Regents, through the Faculty Senate or president, cannot set academic entrance or eligibility standards for student-athletes except at the lowest conference or NCAA level. It is a slap in the face of the boards, which are usually tasked with academic oversight of all students. The bill seems to conflict with the constitutional authority given those boards. The bill is a sly athletics end-run around them.
House Bill 581 also means that student-athletes will have lower academic entrance standards than non-athletes since the bill specifically only lowers standards for student-athletes. A case in point is the D-transfers.
Student-athletes will be able to use those D's; non-athlete students will not. This double standard favoring student-athletes is not right.
If the bill passes, it will have national impact demonstrating how a state legislature overrules the state universities' entrance and eligibility requirements for student-athletes. If such double standards are mandated, then perhaps the universities' athletic programs should be separate from their academic programs.
Although the bill is all wrong, most student-athletes at UNM are right-on, being both fine students who graduate and accomplished athletes. We salute you.
Fred Hashimoto
UNM Faculty Senator
