Yahoo's Forde says Duke's freshmen housing policy is making Duke a "Jock School"

[flyingdutchdevil]

The argument in favor of athletes living with another in the same sport is that the schedules are so intense, creating a special situation that would not be fair to the athlete, or maybe even to the non-athlete assigned to live with one.

Not impressed with Forde's arguments that "differing roommate assignment" practices make Duke a "Jock School."

Schedules are intense. No doubt about it. And how about the select few biology students who need to wake up at 4am everyday to get to Science Drive to check on his/her experiments? Or the History buff who is working with a Professor/team on some fascinating research and only has access to the rare reading rooms certain hours a day?

If you're doing to make exceptions for athletes, do it for non-athletes as well. And according to the Forde article - which I'm sure is true or not - "In late February, the school informed the incoming freshman class of 2018-19 that it is mandating random room assignments — no more requesting and prearranging roommates. First-year collegians will simply get who they get to live with, not necessarily who they want". To me, that completely says, "we're favoring athletes for housing over non-athletes". Nothing new, but interesting nonetheless.

[flyingdutchdevil]

I suspect that basketball players room together in about 98% of situations in all colleges. It makes sense for dozens of reasons.

While it makes perfect sense, the idiocy comes from Duke CHANGING their policy but continuing to make exceptions for athletes.

I have no issue with Duke having double standards for athletes and non-athletes. Just don't change your policy to reference all students and then make exceptions for athletes. Duke did this to themselves.

[scottdude8]

My comment on this article is in the OAD thread because of the weird merger of threads. A couple people commented on why I felt so strongly about the article. To clarify, it was less about the fact that Forde called out Duke, and more about the quality of the journalism. (I wrote that post on my iPhone, so I definitely wasn't as articulate as I would like to think I normally am, haha.)

To me, the article had all the negative qualities of a clickbait article: Forde found an example of an admittedly not perfect practice in which Duke favors student-athletes over the typical student, but one that is extremely minimal in the grand scheme of things; he then blew that out of proportion and made some very strained comparisons to other, more onerous examples of student-athlete hypocrisy amongst D1 schools; finally, he used that to create a "Duke-bashing" headline that he knew would draw clicks. The actual journalism in the article is extremely minimal, and even if you view this as an "opinion" piece the conclusions that Forde draws are so out of proportion with the actual transgression that they are almost comical.

So the reason I got so worked up was more that this article is an example of the general horrific state of sports journalism. I don't think I could've gotten an article about this past my editors at the Chronicle back in my day, so it blows my mind how Yahoo would agree to publish it. Instead of spending time/resources focusing on more pressing issues that merit investigative journalism (i.e. UNC, MSU, Louisville, etc.), that time was instead spent on a click-bait piece. Ugh.

[devildeac]

Kansas built a $12 million palace for their basketball players to live in. Kentucky has something similar. Why doesn’t Forde write about them? Duke is one of the few major programs whose players still live in dorms with “regular” students. Ridiculous but not surprising that Yahoo would find a way to still take shots at us.

Of course, our players could instead go to UNC where they could live rent-free in Roy’s house while selling drugs and not going to class and/or having tutors write papers and/or secretaries "grade" such papers.

Added clarification.

[pfrduke]

While it makes perfect sense, the idiocy comes from Duke CHANGING their policy but continuing to make exceptions for athletes.

I have no issue with Duke having double standards for athletes and non-athletes. Just don't change your policy to reference all students and then make exceptions for athletes. Duke did this to themselves.

How, then, do you fix the problem* (non-athlete pre-selection of roommates) while continuing to preserve something that hadn't been a problem (athletes rooming together)?

*I use problem here loosely, to refer to the thing the university stated it wanted to fix. I take no position on whether or not such a practice is a problem in the abstract.

[flyingdutchdevil]

How, then, do you fix the problem* (non-athlete pre-selection of roommates) while continuing to preserve something that hadn't been a problem (athletes rooming together)?

*I use problem here loosely, to refer to the thing the university stated it wanted to fix. I take no position on whether or not such a practice is a problem in the abstract.

IMO, you don't change it or you change it and put all athletes together. You don't change it AND make exceptions for athletes.

I actually think the prior process was fine. I'll give you a real example. When I got the roommate survey 15 years ago, I didn't put down any requests for roommates. I wish I had. Why? Because, as an international student, I got paired with another international student! Part of the reason I came to the US was because I wanted to embrace and learn about American culture. I wish I wrote, "American roommate. USA! USA! USA!" on my roommate request form.

I do think Forde made a great point about how universities are now catering more to athletes than ever. To me, this does need to change.

[Li_Duke]

What about Pat Forde, the guy who wrote the article?

Yes, I agree with him too. Sorry, reading articles quickly while at work means not being particularly careful or observant.

[BigWayne]

While it makes perfect sense, the idiocy comes from Duke CHANGING their policy but continuing to make exceptions for athletes.

I have no issue with Duke having double standards for athletes and non-athletes. Just don't change your policy to reference all students and then make exceptions for athletes. Duke did this to themselves.

I maintain that this part is the second act of idiocy. The first one is the mandating of random assignments. There is really nothing wrong with people being able to choose their roommates. Like most bureaucratic decisions based on some theoretical desired outcome, it's going to backfire all over the place. I doubt the students will like it and, in fact, some students may decline admission once they find this out. Once they implement it, the university is exposing itself to all sorts of complaints and actions because all sorts of exceptions are going to end up having to be accommodated to satisfy all of the different factions at the university. They are really going to wish they never thought of this.

[sagegrouse]

While it makes perfect sense, the idiocy comes from Duke CHANGING their policy but continuing to make exceptions for athletes.

I have no issue with Duke having double standards for athletes and non-athletes. Just don't change your policy to reference all students and then make exceptions for athletes. Duke did this to themselves.

Schedules are intense. No doubt about it. And how about the select few biology students who need to wake up at 4am everyday to get to Science Drive to check on his/her experiments? Or the History buff who is working with a Professor/team on some fascinating research and only has access to the rare reading rooms certain hours a day?

If you're doing to make exceptions for athletes, do it for non-athletes as well. And according to the Forde article - which I'm sure is true or not - "In late February, the school informed the incoming freshman class of 2018-19 that it is mandating random room assignments — no more requesting and prearranging roommates. First-year collegians will simply get who they get to live with, not necessarily who they want". To me, that completely says, "we're favoring athletes for housing over non-athletes". Nothing new, but interesting nonetheless.

Yep. It would have been better to have everyone living under the same tent, but variations in "room-mate assignment policy" doesn't scream CORRUPTION or JOCK SCHOOL to me. It's a detail hardly worth mentioning. I seem to remember (and, occasionally, I recall correctly) when most but not all of the freshmen were on East Campus in the early '90s but all the male football and basketball players were on West. That's a ten-times bigger deal and got no comment at the time.

[sagegrouse]

I maintain that this part is the second act of idiocy. The first one is the mandating of random assignments. There is really nothing wrong with people being able to choose their roommates. Like most bureaucratic decisions based on some theoretical desired outcome, it's going to backfire all over the place. I doubt the students will like it and, in fact, some students may decline admission once they find this out. Once they implement it, the university is exposing itself to all sorts of complaints and actions because all sorts of exceptions are going to end up having to be accommodated to satisfy all of the different factions at the university. They are really going to wish they never thought of this.

Having no inside knowledge, but let me speculate -- all the prep school kids were rooming with each other.

Of course, what happened 50+ years ago was much more reprehensible. Duke assigned roommates on the basis of religion. "Eruditio et Religio," or whatever.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

I maintain that this part is the second act of idiocy. The first one is the mandating of random assignments. There is really nothing wrong with people being able to choose their roommates. Like most bureaucratic decisions based on some theoretical desired outcome, it's going to backfire all over the place. I doubt the students will like it and, in fact, some students may decline admission once they find this out. Once they implement it, the university is exposing itself to all sorts of complaints and actions because all sorts of exceptions are going to end up having to be accommodated to satisfy all of the different factions at the university. They are really going to wish they never thought of this.

When I enrolled at Duke in the early 90s, I think 90+% of us had random assignments. We filled out a form (on paper - it was still the dark ages!) stating some of our preferences and they tried to avoid matching up night owls with early risers, smokers with non-smokers, etc. I don't know how much science was put into the actual pairings - Duke was a lot more homogeneous back then so the odds were pretty good that there would be lots of pairings of similar students. My roommate and I became fairly good friends - we were from similar socioeconomic backgrounds and had the same planned major but we also had some very major differences in our backgrounds. Most people got along or made do. A few pairings had to be separated. I personally thought random pairings were a really good idea, though if mine had not worked out, I might have felt differently.

At the time, basketball and football players and I believe swimmers were matched with teammates. They were all put in the "new" dorms just off west campus so that they could be as close as possible to practice (swimmers practice very early in the morning). But they were mixed in among the general student population. I don't think their rooms were any different from anyone else's. Last I heard, now that all freshmen are on East, I think basketball players continue to room with basketball players but are still mixed in with the general freshman student population.

So the new plan is largely a reversion to how things used to be. And yes, some level of preference is given to basketball players, but it is not like they are living in a cocoon of only scholarship athletes in luxury facilities. I think Forde is really grasping for a story here.

[Wander]

Yep. It would have been better to have everyone living under the same tent, but variations in "room-mate assignment policy" doesn't scream CORRUPTION or JOCK SCHOOL to me. It's a detail hardly worth mentioning. I seem to remember (and, occasionally, I recall correctly) when most but not all of the freshmen were on East Campus in the early '90s but all the male football and basketball players were on West. That's a ten-times bigger deal and got no comment at the time.

I think the article is just meant to provide one detail as an example of how athletes and NARPs are treated vastly differently in campus life, usually with scholarship athletes being treated far better. That's a fine topic to write about and one that is not often discussed by the Jay Bilases (Bilasi?) of the world. It's not about how that one detail is particularly important or horrible or corrupt. At least that was my reading of it.

[ChillinDuke]

Yeah, not sure I see what the big deal is here.

While it's easy for me to envision scenarios where athletes rooming truly "randomly" amongst the general study body are enriched by the experience (as well as the student body being enriched), it's much easier for me to envision the opposite: situations where athletes are thrust into unworkable situations (e.g. late night partiers, hardcore studiers with wonky schedules, etc).

I'm totally fine with athletes rooming together, so long as their rooms are amongst the general student rooms (i.e. no special athlete dorms).

- Chillin

[sagegrouse]

Yeah, not sure I see what the big deal is here.

While it's easy for me to envision scenarios where athletes rooming truly "randomly" amongst the general study body are enriched by the experience (as well as the student body being enriched), it's much easier for me to envision the opposite: situations where athletes are thrust into unworkable situations (e.g. late night partiers, hardcore studiers with wonky schedules, etc).

I'm totally fine with athletes rooming together, so long as their rooms are amongst the general student rooms (i.e. no special athlete dorms).

- Chillin

Can't our guys get extra-long beds?

[Billy Dat]

To me, the article had all the negative qualities of a clickbait article: Forde found an example of an admittedly not perfect practice in which Duke favors student-athletes over the typical student, but one that is extremely minimal in the grand scheme of things; he then blew that out of proportion and made some very strained comparisons to other, more onerous examples of student-athlete hypocrisy amongst D1 schools; finally, he used that to create a "Duke-bashing" headline that he knew would draw clicks. The actual journalism in the article is extremely minimal, and even if you view this as an "opinion" piece the conclusions that Forde draws are so out of proportion with the actual transgression that they are almost comical.

I happen to generally like Pat Forde as I think he has some stones and speaks truth to power, playing the role of the 4th estate. However, I agree with scottdude8's take on Forde here. Duke is good business for online journalists. Splash a picture of Coach K or the uniform and readers will follow. Forde's kids are high level swimmers, Stanford may be the best swim team in America, so he's got a grounding in this stuff, but I also feel like he has an editorial mandate to write about Duke whenever possible and this was what he could manage today. He does like to take shots at Duke, I think he's one of those many writers who feel like he has to take K down a few pegs whenever possible to balance out perception that K was so lauded in the press (Dick Vitale) for so many years that the public has a saintly view of him that doesn't line up with his many list of transgressions (the Chronicle staff diatribe, the Dillon Brooks lecture, Hansborough shouldn't have been in the game when Gerald punched him, and on).

[Bluedog]

Having no inside knowledge, but let me speculate -- all the prep school kids were rooming with each other.

Of course, what happened 50+ years ago was much more reprehensible. Duke assigned roommates on the basis of religion. "Eruditio et Religio," or whatever.

Actually, that's the concern of the current admin. That people are choosing to room with only people "like" them and aren't getting exposed to different perspectives. With Facebook and all other social networks these days, it's really easy for people to find roommates ahead of time, so it's not like it used to be where selecting a roommate ahead of time was quite rare. It's commonplace now and people often choose based on race/background.

Check out the "terrifying" quote from Mr. Briggs as an example (he is against the new policy):
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/...-freshman-year

I didn't read the article as don't want to give Forde more clicks, but I agree that the policy doesn't really make Duke a "jock school" - it simply illustrates that athletes are given special permissions and the same rules don't apply to them as everybody else in certain circumstances. Obviously, reasonable minds can differ if it is warranted or not, but certainly there is no multi-million dollar dorm dedicated to the basketball players like there is at Kansas and UK.

[brevity]

I agree with Chad Ford here...

What about Pat Forde, the guy who wrote the article?

Yes, I agree with him too. Sorry, reading articles quickly while at work means not being particularly careful or observant.

I just figured Li_Duke would go back to the first post, change Chad Ford's name, and hope that no one was paying attention.

[CameronBornAndBred]

I just figured Li_Duke would go back to the first post, change Chad Ford's name, and hope that no one was paying attention.

Ha! To be fair, I sporked Li_Duke since it was obvious that while he got the name confused, he did read the article.

[johnb]

From Forde:
"NARP's often are more accomplished than the jocks, and many will make more money in their lifetimes."

Each year, our "least accomplished" basketball recruit tends to be among the 50 best seniors in the country at his chosen extracurricular activity, and we typically have 1 or more who are among the 10 best. Even in the rarified air of AB Duke Scholars, it'd be unusual to find the country's 2nd best high school mathematician or the top journalist or the 11th best violinist.

I also don't know about the switch to a financial argument. My hunch is that the most academically elite Duke students may make less money than the average Duke student.

[Richard Berg]

From Forde:
"NARP's often are more accomplished than the jocks, and many will make more money in their lifetimes."

Each year, our "least accomplished" basketball recruit tends to be among the 50 best seniors in the country at his chosen extracurricular activity, and we typically have 1 or more who are among the 10 best. Even in the rarified air of AB Duke Scholars, it'd be unusual to find the country's 2nd best high school mathematician or the top journalist or the 11th best violinist.

I also don't know about the switch to a financial argument. My hunch is that the most academically elite Duke students may make less money than the average Duke student.

Duke punches above its weight in math undergrads, believe it or not. Not so much in music or journalism.

Interesting you brought up the OUSF kids, because (at least when I was there in the early 00s) they all got housed together in Southgate, barring 1 or 2 who were enrolled in a dorm-specific program. Not as roommates, but still, it was kind of a weird clustering of people who were supposed to enliven campuswide academics.