2008 Woodie Awards
New sports conference expanding off the field
Seth Gorenstein
Issue date: 2/22/08 Section: News
|
During the Landmark Conference Academic Collaboration and Integration Institute held in Washington D.C. on Feb. 5 and 6, various representatives from the conference's eight schools addressed plans to pool resources toward joint study abroad programs and student research presentations.
University Provost Pamela Gunter-Smith sees developments toward integrating the Conference's academic and student resources as an extension of the Conference's founding doctrine. "Division III athletics thinks a lot about the scholar athlete, and not just the athletic competition, but the role of athletics in the overall student experience," she said. "Since students are scholar-athletes, it is a natural extension to bridge athletic content and development of academic programming."
Gunter-Smith represented Drew as its Chief Academic Officer in Washington D.C. earlier in the month. President Bob Weisbuch, Director of Athletics Connie Zotos, Statistics Professor and Faculty Athletics Representative Sarah Abramowitz, Student Athlete Advisory Committee Advisor Dara Blum and SAAC student members Allison Segal ('08) and Andrew Cronholm ('08) were also in attendance. Gunter-Smith said a goal of the conference was to establish rapport between the chief academic officers of the eight schools to realize the Landmark Conference's pledge to "holding paramount the centrality of the academic mission at each institution," as written in the preamble of the Conference's constitution.
"This was kind of a first date," Gunter-Smith said. "We brainstormed some of the things we could do together." Though the means for implementing a plan are still under development, Faculty Athletics Representative Sarah Abramowitz is excited about the possibilities.
"The idea is if we pooled resources, and have economies of scale, for example, multiple schools would benefit," Abramowitz said."We tried to offer a program in Ghana this spring, and only three students are going. What if all schools collaborated?" Gunter-Smith envisioned bolstering the sciences at Drew by holding mathematic and computer science conferences and Olympiads. "The number of math majors we have at Drew is small," she said, "but elsewhere, the number of math majors could also be small. If we bring them together [for an event] it would be a broader experience for both schools." Gunter-Smith also hopes for science research proposals to receive backing grants in order to conduct research through multiple schools. "We could submit proposals that could impact three or four schools so you have a stronger proposal that is now collaborative," she said.
Be the first to comment on this story