STEVENSON UNIVERSITY MEMORANDUM

TO: Brett Adams, Director of Athletics

FROM: Susan T. Gorman, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
DATE: November 2, 2017
SUBJECT: MENTORSHIP PROGRAM TO INCREASE FOOTBALL STUDENT
ATHLETE GRADUATION RATE
______________________________________________________________________________
Current enrollment at the institution has now surpassed 4,000 total students, with 3,133

being traditional undergraduate students pursuing a bachelor’s degree. 33%, or 1,034 of our

undergraduate students are males. 44% of our student population are visible minorities

(Stevenson University, n.d.). As you know, in the varsity sports that your department oversees,

we have 370 male student athletes, of which 143 are members of our football team (Stevenson

University Athletics, 2015). Those numbers indicate that 36% of our male undergraduate Commented [AKS1]: Wow

students are athletes and that 14% of our male student population is part of the football program.

This is significantly higher than the national average of just 2.9% of students being athletes

(National Center for Education Statistics, 2017) and is part of our effort to attract more male

students to the institution through athletics.

Nationally, the six year graduation rate for student athletes from four year institutions like

Stevenson is 86% (National Collegiate Athletic Association Research Staff, 2016), while ours is

currently 41% for male athletes (Stevenson University, 2016). This puts male athletes’

graduation rate 17% lower than male non-athletes here at Stevenson and male athletes at other

Middle Atlantic Conference peer institutions, good forwhich places us last place among the 17

institutions. The six year graduation rate for football players nationally is lower, at 76%, with

only 70% of Black football players graduating (National Collegiate Athletic Association

Research Staff, 2016). Our football players are graduating at a rate of 27%, a full 31% lower than
male non-athletes (Stevenson University, 2016). During the same time period, 76% of our female

student athletes graduated within six years.

This low graduation rate, particularly among the football players who represent 39% of

our male student athletes, must be addressed. The development of a mentorship program to help

assist our students succeed both in the classroom and on the field is a proven way to help get our

football players from handling a pigskin to a handling a Stevenson diploma. Commented [AKS2]: Catchy turn of phrase 

Increasing Football Student Athlete Graduation Rates

Recent research has indicated that mentorship programs have significant results in

assisting minority students achieve academic success. Bimper (2017) looked at Black student

athletes at primarily White institutions and found that having a mentor helped the student athlete

navigate the institution, developing their social capital and self-advocateing for themselves.

Carter and Hart (2010) found that having mentors from a similar gender and race, and who

is/waswere also an athletes, helped students develop. Bimper (2017) agreeds, saying arguing that

sport, race, and gender all play a role in a student athletes’ willingness to be mentored. Howard-

Hamilton and Sina (2001) see a mentoring relationship as one that can “provide health and

emotional support that focuses on developing a healthy self-image.” (p. #).. They also believe

that having faculty and administrators mentor a player or a team can help reduce biases that

faculty and staff have towards student athletes and better serve the students. In terms of student

athletes, hHaving a mentor available to them student athletes to help guide them through the

challenges of being both a student and an athlete, can thus be very beneficial to their academic

success.
 The mentorship program should therefore have two primary components: peer mentors

and faculty mentors. Peer mentors can be recruited from current student athletes on the team who

are achieving a 3.0 GPA or higher and from football players who recently graduated. This would

allow current players to have a mentor who is of the same gender and of the same status as

football student athlete, fulfilling Bimper’s (2017), Carter and Hart’s (2010), and Watt and

Moore’s (2001) suggestions on the best options for selecting successful mentors. Race should

also play a role when recruiting mentors as we do have a large proportion of racial minorities

who are members of our football team and having a mentor of the same race as them will also

help them succeed (Bimper, 2017). Students should be paired one-to-one or at most two-to-one

with mentors. They should have once per week check-ins with their mentor in person or by

phone to verify that the student athlete is feeling confident in their program of study and to help

with any questions or concerns they have.

Faculty mentors should be selected from our current faculty and matched with groups of

8between eight and -10 football players who are studying towards degrees from each professor’s

faculty major (Howard-Hamilton & Sina, 2001). The matching of student athletes with faculty

members will help break down some barriers between the two groups, allow for the faculty

members to provide guidance to the students, allow the faculty members to learn about the

student athletes’ experiences on campus, and hopefully make both groups open to working

together. The students and faculty members should meet bi-weekly for quick 30 minute sessions.

Challenges to Implementation

I am aware that the faculty has previously been resistant to taking on these additional

responsibilities, but I will take care of procuring a sufficient number of willing volunteer faculty

members from my end by stressing the importance of the success of these student athletes to the
overall enrollment at our institution. Additional challenges will come from recruiting a sufficient

number of qualified peer mentors, given the current graduation rate for the team. If needed, we

can recruit other academically successful male student athletes to serve as mentors. Commented [AKS3]: Good plan – I was going to ask
about this, so I’m glad you addressed this in the memo.

The final challenge will be convincing our current football players to participate in this

program. I would ask that you and Coach Hottle make participation in the mentoring program a

requirement for continued involvement on the team.

Implications for Adoption

Our institution relies heavily on the tuition fees that this large group of current and future

student athletes contribute to the institution. We need to assist these students to continue towards

graduation in order to help them obtain diplomas, to provide revenue for the institution, and to

make our institution appear attractive to future academically inclined student athletes. This

mentorship program is the first step to helping us help our students’ ‘and the institution’s future.

Word count: 982

Excellent memo! Well written and persuasive.

24/24
 References

Bimper, A. Y. (2017). Mentorship of Black student-athletes at a predominately White American

university: critical race theory perspective on student-athlete development. Sport,

Education and Socity, 22(2), 175-193. doi:10.1080/13573322.2015.1022524

Carter, A. R., & Hart, A. (2010). Perspectives of mentoring: The Black female student-athlete.

Sport Management Review, 13(4), 382-394. doi:10.1016/j.smr.2010.01.003

Howard-Hamilton, M. F., & Sina, J. A. (2001). How cCollege aAffects sStudent aAthletes. New

Directions for Student Services, 93, 35-47.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2017). Fast fFacts: Back to sSchool sStatistics.

Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

National Collegiate Athletic Association Research Staff. (2016). Trends in gGraduation sSuccess

rRates and fFederal gGraduation rRates at NCAA Division I iInstitutions. Indianapolis,

IN: National Collegegiate Athletic Association. Retrieved from

http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/2016RES_GSRandFedTrends-

Final_sc_20161114.pdf

Stevenson University. (2016). 2016 Athletic aAcademic rReport. Baltimore, MD: Stevenson

University. Retrieved from http://www.stevenson.edu/about/consumer-

information/documents/2016-academic-report.pdf
Stevenson University Athletics. (2015). Stevenson University 2014-15 eEquity in aAthletics

dData aAnalysis rReport. Owings Mills, MD: Stevenson University. Retrieved from

http://gomustangsports.com/EADA/EADA_Data-2015--2-.pdf

Stevenson University. (n.d.). About Stevenson: Facts at a gGlance. Retrieved from

http://www.stevenson.edu/about/index.html

Watt, S. K., & Moore, J. L. (2001). Who aAre sStudent aAthletes? In M. F. Howard-Hamilton,

& S. K. Watt, Student Services for Athletes: New Directions for Student Services (pp. 7-

18). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.