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Information competencies and student athletes.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Librarians at Penn State identified student athletes as an underserved population and developed a pilot program designed to address the bibliographic needs of this peripatetic group. By using various formats and media librarians were able to deliver their program to a traditionally hard-to-reach population.

Introduction and Background

Penn State's venerable football coach Joe Paterno set the standard for student athletics many years ago, in the process establishing a legacy for academic success that is at least as important as his football program. Since 1987, the Morgan Academic Support Center for Student Athletes at the University Park campus has assisted student athletes with their scholarly endeavors by providing an infrastructure for a totally self-contained academic program throughout their first year and continued learning support the remainder of their time at Penn State. Our eighty-three per cent graduation rate for student athletes is among the highest for public institutions and indicates a strong program. This may be even more notable in light of the large scale of the University and of its sports activities [1] Because of the success Penn State athletes have had, the Penn State program has become a nationally recognized and emulated model for collegiate athletics. It is, however, a closely guarded program, designed not only to support but also to protect student athletes from intrusions, including those generated by rogue librarians and the designs they may have on this group of students.

While most Division I schools have educational mentoring programs for student athletes, academics do not appear to be as high on the priority list of most college and university sports programs as they are at Penn State. Graduation rates are important statistics but are not necessarily indices of academic success or barometers for the true literacy levels. NCAA's web pages suggest only a minor question or two prospective students might want to ask about academics at schools they are considering (http://www.ncaa.org/), and they lack any reference at all to libraries, reading, or information literacy in the advice offered student athletes. A surprising number of college and university main pages do not have links to their libraries either, so perhaps the NCAA shouldn't be expected to point out that a great library could conceivably be a major factor in choosing a school. In a bid to change perceptions and strategies, to make sure that student athletes are provided opportunities to become information competent, and coincidentally to encourage the use of our libraries' vast resources as a recruiting tool, over the past year four of us at the Penn State University Libraries piloted an outreach program for student athletes. This paper will describe...

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