I'm not sure what your basis for this claim is, but you're way off-base.
I'm a graduate of OU and a former employee of the athletic department. I can assure you that classes are in no way "tailored" to anybody - I took classes with some of our athletes in several different sports, and it's the exact same class whether an athlete is enrolled or not.
As for taking tests outside of class time - if you bothered to pay attention, you'd notice that several athletes are not in class every single day, most frequently due to practice or travel schedules. There's nothing underhanded about this. The reason an assistant is present during the athlete's test is for the same reason a professor is present during everyone else's test - someone has to actually administer the test and answer questions if needed. The testing assistant is most often the professor's graduate assistant, who is held to the same ethical standards regarding cheating that the professor is.
These policies are not only normal, they are mandated by the NCAA.
I know it's easy for someone to shoot his/her mouth off at what they "think" happens in the athletic department, but until you've been there and lived it, it would be nice if you checked your facts first.
I agree with your facts here. I feel that often, student athletes are unfairly given a bad rap for things that are out of their control.
That being said, it's no secret that athletes at D1 schools get (sometimes rediculous) special treatment. I worked at my Universities TV station, focusing on sports coverage, so I had a lot of exposure to this, and I spent a lot of time at the athletic department. At the University of Hartford, it would be difficult to say that everyone is treated equally. For example, freshman athletes are given senior housing. Also, while athletes are mostly in the same classes, their actual experience in class is watered down, they miss many classes (which may or may not be related to practice or work out time in any given instance), and the testing is indeed done differently - my roomate worked as a tutor, and most of his students were athletes getting assisted with their exams, just like what was mentioned earlier in this thread - it isn't always the TA or the grad assistant.
And it goes beyond housing and classes. The university pays for segways which are given to just about all the athletes in the program. This is, in my opinion, an atrocious use of school funding. I have also had the unique opportunity to look inside the men's locker room (used only for baseball and basketball) - I couldn't count the number of HDTVs on two hands. For reference, many of my classes still used ancient standalone projectors for their slides. Yeah, the University of Hartford isn't well-known across the country for their academics or their athletics, but come on guys!
Just like in the real world, athletes are treated differently, and as a result, are held to a different set of rules and standards. Often, this results in a group of people totally ostracized by the community around them - whether they know/care or not. They live in a bubble, get the bare minimum of an education, and then head to the pros - as long as they're in the top 2-3%
. I consider this not only a disservice to the individual and the university, but to America as a whole as well.
