Faculty Guidelines

The University of Tennessee is committed to providing superior educational opportunities for all students, including all student-athletes, who attend UT. In this effort it is important for faculty to understand the basic rules that govern all intercollegiate athletics:

The University of Tennessee as a member of the NCAA and of the Southeastern Conference is not allowed to do anything for a student-athlete that we would not do for other students. There can be no "extra benefits." There is one important exception to this rule, an exception mandated by the SEC Student-Athlete Institutional Covenant and the NCAA Bylaws. We are required to provide general academic counseling and tutoring services to all recruited student-athletes and we are required to provide a Life Skills program. These services are provided at the University of Tennessee through the Thornton Academic Support Center which reports to the Provost's office.

The rules that govern intercollegiate athletics require that faculty be especially vigilant about some issues.

Specifically

• Faculty should be aware that they should not do things for student-athletes that they might reasonably do for other students. You are not allowed to buy meals for student-athletes; you should not allow them to charge long-distance phone calls or use computer or other facilities unless these opportunities are offered as part of a classroom experience and are offered to all students. Faculty should not offer special courses for student athletes, and should never create assignments for student-athletes that differ from those required of all other students in a course. To offer such "extra benefits" is to put the institution at risk of penalty, as surely as do the activities of boosters who offer bribes or other inducements.
• Faculty should not refuse to do things for student-athletes that they would reasonably do for other students. If student-athletes ask to take a make-up examination because of a competition off campus, and if other students would be allowed to take a make-up for good reason, then the student-athlete should be allowed to do so. Unhappy experiences with a few student-athletes has caused some faculty to treat all student-athletes as irresponsible and poor students. This is unfair to the many who are good and conscientious students.
• Faculty should cooperate with the Thornton Academic Support Center in monitoring class attendance and academic progress. All intercollegiate athletic programs at UT are required to comply with the SEC guidelines on missed class days. These guidelines say that competition and travel schedules may not cause a student-athlete to miss more than 20% of scheduled classes. Student-athletes are expected to share travel schedules with faculty at the beginning of the semester. Faculty who feel that 20% may be too much to allow a student to do well should consult with the student to determine whether through extra effort and tutoring the missed class days may be made up. If not, the faculty member certainly has the right to suggest that the student not enroll in the course. It is important to remember, however, that most student-athletes will not need to miss as much as 20% of scheduled classes. Please refer to the sample "travel/competition" letter on the web site.
• The academic support staff at the Thornton Center, working in cooperation with coaches, try to ensure that student-athletes do not miss classes for reasons other than scheduled competition and ask your assistance in responding to the emailed or written requests that you will receive each semester asking about the attendance and academic progress of the student-athletes in your classroom.
• Coaches are not permitted to call instructors to ask about grades. All contacts with faculty and other instructional staff having to do with academic progress should come from the Thornton Center. The staff of the Thornton Center serve as academic counselors and are vitally concerned with the progress of their students. Faculty feedback concerning the academic progress of the student-athlete is critical and cooperation is encouraged. Please see the sample "Progress report" on this web site. If instructors ever feel pressured to give an unearned grade or to reveal grades before the University deadlines, please contact the Director of the Thornton Center or the NCAA Faculty Representative as soon as possible.
• It is never appropriate to give a grade of Incomplete to a student-athlete or to any other student in order to allow that student to avoid an earned "F." A grade of Incomplete should be awarded only when circumstances beyond the control of the student make it impossible for the student to complete a course, and when there is reasonable expectation that upon completion of the work the earned grade will be a "D" or better.
• Any case of academic dishonesty or other prohibited classroom behavior (see Hilltopics) should be treated in exactly the same way as such behavior by other students would be treated.
• Finally, because some of our student-athletes are celebrities whose athletic and academic progress is of interest to the press and public, you may be asked for information about that progress. Please remember that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) prohibits dissemination of any information about a student-athlete's academic progress to anyone but the student, the student's advisor, and the staff of the Academic Support Center unless the student-athlete grants permission for the information to be shared. The procedure and waivers relative to the request for academic progress information from the Thornton Center have been reviewed and approved by the University's Legal Counsel.