Playing sports, choosing concentrations

In 2011, the Associated Press published a survey examining academic clustering, the tendency of varsity athletes on the same team to major in similar subjects, among football teams at 68 universities in the conferences which receive automatic bids to the Bowl Championship Series.

The survey found that at 17 schools, more than 50 percent of football players were distributed among one or two majors. At another 22 schools, more than 50 percent of football players were found in one of three departments. The phenomenon was prevalent at Vanderbilt University, often considered the most academically strong school in the NCAA’s Southeastern Conference, where 35 of 59 non-freshman football players were majoring in human and organizational development.

Of Princeton football players between the Classes of 2011 and 2015, 59 percent majored in economics, history or politics, also some of the largest departments at the University in terms of total student enrollment. The tendency of teammates to major in similar disciplines is prevalent on other Princeton teams as well, though some are more pronounced than others.

To examine the extent of this tendency at Princeton, The Daily Princetonian analyzed rosters on GoPrincetonTigers.com for the Classes of 2011 through 2015, cross-referenced with the Residential College Student Facebook for current sophomores, juniors and seniors and TigerNet for members of the Classes of 2011 and 2012. In total, 1,111 current and former student-athletes were recorded: 669 men and 412 women.

The results show that student-athletes do tend to concentrate in a handful of departments across the social sciences, although almost all majors are represented in the end, save for the relatively small German and music departments. Overall, a majority of varsity athletes decide to concentrate in six relatively large departments. Student-athletes make up about 20 percent of the total undergraduate student body.

Some of these trends — particularly that of athletes to concentrate in larger departments — have been noticed by University administrators. The Office of the Dean of the College has begun to host discussions with varsity athletes on major choice. The initiative mirrors ODOC’s Major Choices initiative, which is intended to encourage students to be open-minded about their choice of concentration. It was launched in 2004, in part to encourage students to look beyond the University’s larger academic departments.

Many of the trends prevalent at the University-wide level — such as the popularity of the social sciences and the overrepresentation of males in engineering disciplines — are noticed to slightly greater extents in analyses of athletes’ major choices.

The numbers

In addition to German and music, two similarly small departments — astrophysics and Slavic languages and literatures — which typically draw 10 concentrators or fewer per class, saw just a single student-athlete each over the past five years.

Comparative literature and classics are also underrepresented among the student-athlete population. Their concentrators make up about 2 percent of the undergraduate population, yet less than .5 percent of student-athletes. Additionally, the math department churned out about 3 percent of the Classes of 2011 and 2012. However, in the last five years, only three student-athletes have declared as math majors, or about .3 percent of the population.

The disparity between men and women in engineering is larger among athletes than in the overall undergraduate population. Recent years have yielded an approximately 2:1 ratio for undergraduate men and women engineers. The ratio jumps to about 3:1 when only athletes are considered.

Clayton Marsh ’85, Deputy Dean of the College and faculty athletics representative to the NCAA — a position charged with ensuring compliance with eligibility requirements — said that the administration has discussed the spread of athletes across departments.

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“This year, [Associate Dean for Campus Life] Tara Kinsey [’97] joined our team in West College. She and I sat down together to think about what kind of data might be useful so we can think about the more strategic ways to better support the academic lives of student-athletes,” he said. “And we did take a look at distribution of student-athletes across the concentrations. We noticed they were represented heavily in departments that were also very large.”

Forty-seven percent of male student-athletes concentrate in economics, politics or history, some of the school’s largest departments. Economics leads the pack with roughly 22 percent, a rate approximately double that of the overall undergraduate population. In the combined population of men and women student-athletes, 61 percent join those three departments or sociology, psychology or ecology and evolutionary biology. Those six departments awarded 41 percent of all degrees in the graduating years 2012 and 2011.

The smaller sample sizes of some specific teams demonstrate a degree of similarity. Over the last five years the men’s golf team has had 10 concentrators. Seven of them joined the politics department. Over the past five years, 18 students on the baseball team — 49 percent — have joined the economics department. Eighty percent of men’s lacrosse players have majored in economics, history or politics with an approximately even split between the three. Fifty-six percent of field hockey players joined the politics or sociology departments. Twenty percent of women’s swimming and diving majored in ecology and evolutionary biology.

A notable exception can be found in the men’s and women’s fencing teams, for which very little overlap of majors among teammates can be found. On the men's team, there have been no overlaps of concentration within a given year in the last five years. The women's team demonstrates similar heterogeneity.

Director of Athletics Gary Walters ’67 submitted a letter to the editor in response to an interview request. He argued that any group of students with similar interests would demonstrate some degree similarity in choice concentration.

“If one would study all of the diverse co-curricular and extracurricular ‘affinity groups’ on campus, I expect that one would find a different pattern of concentrations in the majors declared among those respective groups,” Walters wrote. “If every affinity group's academic interests were the same, a direct replication of the total mean, Princeton would be a very dull place to go to college.”

The process of choosing classes and eventual concentration can prove difficult for students in general, even those without the time constraints varsity athletes have, Marsh explained.

“Part of the challenge — and it’s not specific to student-athletes — is discovering what lies in store for them in so many different places,” Marsh said, adding that the extraordinary demands on a varsity athlete’s time, “might limit their capacity for exploration. But that’s a might — I don’t know for sure.”

The schedule of a student-athlete includes practice, team meetings, workouts, travel and competition that he or she must reconcile with a complete academic program. The number of extra classes required for B.S.E concentrators — including the lab-focus within the disciplines — could dissuade an already time-pressed varsity athlete.

Discussions with teammates

Jack Strabo, a math-track economics major and a captain and junior midfielder on the men’s lacrosse team, expressed concerns he believes are shared by teammates and fellow athletes.

“Engineering was something I considered a little bit when I came here,” he said. “But it seemed like a bit too much of a time commitment. I felt like it might be too hard to balance that.”

Marsh further discussed the possibility of certain majors offering less favorable scheduling, mentioning engineering and other STEM disciplines.

“There are certain departments where you would see lower enrollments relatively on the part of student-athletes. That is not surprising,” he said. “It probably has much to do with the pacing, frequency and scheduling of assessments.”

Sophomore midfielder on the field hockey team and recently declared psychology concentrator Sydney Kirby also noted that time constraints could make concentrating in engineering disciplines difficult for some athletes.

“I know that there are people who can do it — we’ve had people on our team do it,” Kirby said. “But it’s definitely harder to do it as an athlete simply because we don’t have time.”

Informal advising by older players might provide a complementary explanation for the tendencies among teams toward certain departments.

Strabo discussed how the tight-knit nature of a team can lead some students to pursue similar academic paths.

“When I’ve gone through picking my classes and picking my major, I’ve definitely talked to the older people on the team,” he said. “I know we had a couple econ majors last year I would talk to a good amount.”

Whenever course selection comes around, Strabo said he asks around the team for suggestion of classes to take in a given department or distribution requirement.

“There’s definitely a lot of communication in our team about what classes to take or what majors have interesting classes,” he added.

Teammate and fellow junior midfielder Hunter deButts said he decided to concentrate in history because of his general interest in the subject, and added that the scheduling of assignments tends to be compatible with an athlete’s schedule.

“I honestly really love history, and the history department here is fantastic,” he said in an email. “The professors are very down-to-earth and approachable — a lot like my high school teachers. As far as why other athletes choose history, I’d say it helps that there usually isn’t a lot of graded weekly assignments, which makes it easier to manage your time if you have a mid-week game.”

Similarly, Kirby noted that she and her teammates reached their decisions independently.

“Three or four of us [in my class] are planning to do the same thing, but we all decided it on our own and we didn’t really take classes together,” Kirby said, discussing her teammates’ decisions to declare psychology. “I think we made pretty individual decisions.”

Strabo noted that the breadth and flexibility of economics, history and politics were another potential explanation in regards for their popularity amongst his teammates.

“A lot of people choose one of those majors because they give you a pretty good general skill set,” he said. “They don’t necessarily pigeonhole you into any specific thing. A lot of people on the team think it’s an interesting major. But if you don’t know exactly what you want to do, it leaves a lot of doors open.”

Gene Grossman, chair of the economics department, an academic adviser for freshmen and sophomores in Wilson College and an Academic-Athletic Fellow for the men’s basketball and football teams, similarly noted that team members may influence each others' choices.

“I think there’s a tight bonding among team members which is very supportive not only on an academic level but an emotional level and all levels,” he said. “For basketball, the numbers just aren’t big enough for me to think that it’s a first-order effect. But they definitely clue each other in on what classes are interesting.”

Regarding the overall process of choosing a major, however, he observed few tangible distinctions among student-athletes and the general population.

“Some people know from the day they arrive in Princeton what they want to major in, and some people figure it out,” he said. “Some struggle more and less. I see that among the athletes, and I see that among the non-athletes. I wouldn’t say there’s much of a difference.”

Pizza parties and roundtable discussions

Princeton’s Academic-Athletic Fellows are professors or otherwise members of the staff, each assigned to a varsity team, “who are committed to strengthening and advancing the student-athlete ideal whilst reinforcing the educational mission of the university” according to the program’s front page on GoPrincetonTigers.com. John McPhee ’53, celebrated writer and professor of journalism as well as a fellow for the men’s lacrosse team, described the program as “very idiosyncratic,” with each fellow connecting with his or her team in a different way.

As McPhee recalled, the program is the brainchild of Walters, a former point guard for the Tigers, who witnessed the relationship the late sociology professor emeritus Marvin Bressler developed with the men’s basketball team through his friendship with former coach Pete Carril. Bressler would come to practices and games, relating to the players and getting to know them on an informal level.

“Gary was fond of this situation,” McPhee explained. “And as a result, years later, when he became director of athletics, he created the program to sort of recapitulate it and apply it to all the varsity sports.”

Over 100 faculty members are involved in the program. The football team even has fellows assigned by positional group. Grossman outlined some of the fairly loose goals for fellows, including “being available and being a friendly face in the faculty crowd; being supportive in any way possible.”

That can mean a pizza party for the team hosted at a fellow’s house — as Grossman has made his custom — or attending practices and away games as McPhee often does.

However, Marsh, himself an Academic-Athletic Fellow for the wrestling and field hockey teams, noted that the fellow program is not meant to substitute for or replace other academic advising programs.

“It’s just a supplemental program that gives student-athletes another chance to connect with faculty and staff who can be mentors to them in some way,” Marsh said.

Another more formal means of communication has recently emerged out of Marsh’s office. Marsh said he and Kinsey are planning to convene what he called “roundtable discussions” between members of varsity teams and faculty fellows. Marsh hopes that these colloquia will shed light on misconceptions — which he believes are somewhat prolific — about what accompanies different academic pursuits.

“Tara and I have worked together to think of a number of ways in which we might bring student-athletes together to have candid discussion about choice of major, choice of course and a number of other things that might affect their academic success,” Marsh said. “We will use them to emphasize the value of getting outside of your comfort zone … which may mean a direction that departs from where some of your other teammates are going.”

Marsh said he hopes that these discussions could address issues such as the tendency of athletes to major in similar topics, should the administration deem them problematic.

“These are early days in our effort to look in a precise way at the data and what it suggests about how student-athletes are going about choosing concentration and the contours of their courses of study,” he said. “But I’m not saying there is a problem. I’m saying this to emphasize that we are very much putting in place standing opportunities to engage in order to promote this message about choice of major and how you need to make one that is well-informed.”

Princeton considers itself well-positioned and pioneering in its mission to bridge athletics and academics.

“We truly do see student-athletes as students,” Marsh said. “They are part and parcel of the greater educational enterprise here. They are students who are also pursuing athletic goals, but we see them as being fabric of every class: seamless.”

Walters noted in his letter that the education that takes place on the field is hugely beneficial to athletes and an essential part of the student-athlete experience.

“Princeton athletes greatly benefit from the pedagogical excellence of our coaches and the practical experience of working together toward common goals within a publicly competitive environment,” Walters said in his letter to the editor. “They engage in and experience the spontaneity of the creative and performing arts, the practical implementation of teamwork, the social psychology of organizational behavior, the development of cognitive bandwidth to analyze and adapt to changing competitive situations, the construct for honest effort and ethical decision-making — and much more.”