IU considers early athlete registration

Athletes seem to be the top priority -- at least in terms of scheduling. After years of student-athletes experiencing trouble finding a way to put a schedule together that included time for class, games and practice, the Bloomington Faculty Council approved a temporary plan Tuesday that would allow student-athletes to register for classes before the rest of the undergraduate students at IU.\nThe plan, which still has to be reviewed by IU President Adam Herbert, and voted on in January by the board of trustees, would allow student-athletes, beginning the summer of 2005, a priority in scheduling. Student-athletes would still have to wait until after graduate students registered.\nThe plan would be on an interim basis until the spring semester of 2007-2008; during that time different plans will be reviewed in order to find the best plan.\nThe policy of giving athletes priority scheduling is a common practice in the Big Ten, as every university besides Purdue has a policy in place, athletics department officials said.\nThere are a variety of reasons the athletics department has wanted a policy like this, but one additional reason is because new NCAA rules will make it tougher for athletes to stay eligible, said BFC President Dan Daleke.\n"NCAA regulations for progress for a degree to maintain eligibility will be stiffer," Daleke said. "Coaches have wanted this primarily for the benefits as a recruiting tool and enable them to schedule students to not be disadvantaged with scheduling for practice."\nThe new rule taking place in 2006, requires student-athletes entering into a certain graduating class must have a particular percentage of their degree completed at the beginning of the year to stay eligible, said Scott Norman, IUSA vice president. \nThe IUSA has yet to formally announce whether it agrees with the policy. A meeting is set for Jan. 13 with the IUSA Congress to debate the issue and to decide on a stance.\nThough Norman understands the frustration some students might feel with student-athletes getting priority in scheduling, the scheduling issues might not be as bad as some students might think.\nBefore agreeing upon this course of action, other policies were looked at, including allowing athletes to register first among their graduating class, but problems with the inadequacies in the system arose and the approved policy was seen as the best course of action, Norman said.\nThough the problem of priority scheduling for athletes might be solved for the time being, the ultimate problem remains in fixing the current scheduling for students, Norman said.\nWith problems in rain checking and good waitlisting system among a few, Norman feels that if these problems are addressed, the entire student body can have a successful registration process, which is the hope of the IUSA, he said.\nBut some students still feel this new policy is, in essence, favoritism. One reason cited was that student-athletes are the same as regular and undergraduate students and should be treated the same, senior Molly Foos said.\n"There are lots of other non-athlete students balancing other sorts of extracurricular activities and school as well, yet they are not granted the privilege of scheduling classes early," she said. "I think there should be a class standing priority registration where seniors get to register first and so on, whether you are an athlete or a star student, shouldn't dictate whether you register before someone else or not."\nThe Associated Press contributed to this story.\n-- Contact staff writer Dan Click at daaclick@indiana.edu.