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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, Oct. 8, 1963
Dean Woodruff Reports Athletes Score in Class
The academic performance of athletes at KU is not significantly different from that of non-athletes of similar ability. Laurence C. Woodruff, Dean of Students and KU faculty representative to the Big Eight Conference, told Conference faculty representatives meeting in Kansas City yesterday.
He reported on the completion of a study performed at KU at Conference expense. The study compared 340 male students who entered their first classes for credit in the fall of 1957; 100 of them were athletes.
One implication of the report: members of an athletic squad are truly representative of the undergraduate male segment of the student body. One conclusion: present eligibility standards of the Big Eight Conference do not work an injustice on the athlete.
PERHAPS MORE important, the report concludes that proposals to increase eligibility requirements for competition would require the athlete to meet higher standards than those applied to other students. College standards may have been raised in recent years, the report continues, but the athlete also is meeting this higher level of achievement.
Assisting Dean Woodruff in the preparation of this study were E. Gordon Colliser, director of KU Guidance Services; James K. Hitt, director of admissions and registrar; and George B. Smith, vice chancellor for institutional planning.
Athletes and non-athletes were grouped according to rank in high school and according to rank on two of the University's placement examinations given every entering student. These groups were compared as to the number of semester hours of classwork passed,
cumulative grade point averages persistence of enrollment, and graduation.
"When compared at their own level of rank," the report states, "these data indicated no significant difference between the performance of athletes and non-athletes for any of the items tested."
ON THE STUDY of graduation, the final figures were almost identical: 44% of those students who enrolled in 1957 and participated in athletics were graduated at the end of 10 semesters; 45% of the students who enrolled in 1957 and did not participate in athletics were graduated during the same period.
"The study carries no implications that those students who were not graduated 'flunked out.'" Dean Woodruff said. "Other KU studies have shown that a large proportion of students who leave the University do so for personal or financial reasons or to transfer to other institutions."
In final percentages the graduation of athletes was virtually the same as that of non-athletes. In the comparison by rank on one of the two placement examinations, however, higher percentages of athletes were graduated than of non-athletes in all three ability groupings; in the comparison by rank in high school class, in two of the three groupings.
Using rank on the other placement examination, percentages of graduation of the non-athlete were slightly higher in two of the three groupings, and higher for the athlete in the other.
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