No Western student-athlete will be left on the ‘academic sideline’ if Coleen Dalton and Bonnie Cooper have anything to say about it.
For the last five years, the pair has teamed up to help first-year student-athletes transition to the most demanding academic and varsity sport life they’ve ever experienced. The Academic Success Program brings together learning skills needed to thrive at university, including several workshops (pre- and post-season), presentations and athlete-designated study halls.
“They come from club sports, so they get the time commitment. But they don’t understand the differences when they get here,” said Dalton, Learning Skills Services coordinator in the Student Development Centre. “Take hockey players, for example. They’re used to their two practices and two games a week. Well, now that they’re here, they practice every night, have games on the weekend, manage workout times and could have individual meetings with the coaches. All these time commitments are massive, and they are also taking five university courses on top of that.
“With the rest of the student population, we help them manage the ‘Oh my god, I’m taking all these university courses,’ which is way heavier than when they were in high school. With athletes, it’s the same idea, but with the added sport increasing that load and pressure.”
Dalton introduces student-athletes to the program the first week of school with a time management presentation. Study halls, located in Thames Hall, also open the same week, with some varsity sports making it mandatory, she added, with others strongly encouraging their athletes.
Study halls are led by academic mentors from Western’s Masters of Coaching program. Most are former athletes themselves and can connect with the overwhelming feeling the students are experiencing.
“The demands on a student-athlete are a little bit different – it just adds that little extra to their plate. We want to make that transition from high school to Western as easy as possible for them,” said Bonnie Cooper, coordinator of athlete services with Mustang Athletics. “They pull from all the different areas –athletics, academics, still having a social life. Every athlete will have that pressure of where they fit in. We want to ease that pressure, if we can, so they’re not overwhelmed.”
The coaches were consulted early on in forming the program to understand their needs.
“At the beginning, the coaches were focused on their sport. But now, they have an academic focus, too, and are starting to look at ‘Are my students doing okay in the classroom?’” Dalton said. “It used to be I’d get a referral (from a coach) in March that a student may be in danger. This first year of the program, I got seven referrals from teams in March, which is too late to help them. Now, I get them in September and October. I had a whole pile in January. Thank goodness, because now I can actually do something to help them so they don’t run into any further problems.”
Dalton also holds sessions for coaches, sharing tips on the mental health of athletes and how to spot red flags that signal a student is in need of help.
“(The student-athletes) were tops in high school, but not here,” Cooper said. “If something goes wrong on the athletic side, it can affect them on the academic side. And if they are struggling in the classroom, that can spill over onto the field. We want them to keep a solid perspective on why they are at Western and that’s why we have mentors there as a resource for them.”
Five years ago, Canadian Interuniversity Sport recognized 25 per cent of Western’s 1,000 or so student-athletes as Academic All-Canadians. That means playing a varsity sport and maintaining at least an 80 per cent average. Today, that number is up to 32 per cent, putting Western tops in the country.
“If you line up all the student-athletes, and tell them to look at either side of them, one of them will be 80 per cent or better,” Cooper said. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable that we can see those numbers grow.”
Dalton admires the student-athletes considering they start from scratch when arriving on campus.
“I like being able to watch them play. I’ve gotten to know them at students and I feel real proud when I see them in their world,” she said. “It’s really fun to watch them play and see how their two worlds fit.”