I encourage you all to review all the AD briefings to the BOV which can be found here:
https://www.wm.edu/about/administration/.../index.php
The most recent meeting content from last week has yet to be posted. It's extremely repetitive meeting to meeting for at least the past 4 presentations. Repetition of values, goals, mission, etc. If I presented these decks to my companies board I'd have been fired years ago.
Our #1 Goal is Academic Excellence - Recruit, retain and graduate student-athletes by providing the resources, mentoring and support to excel academically.
On the surface this is what we've always done. Jason Simms has an amazing track record supporting athlete academics, generating high GPAs, high graduation rates, and CAA scholar athletes of the year. Best in the conference by far, and rated high nationally, despite as stated in the report having the worst staff to student ratio in the conference at 270:1. Some of this success in the face of little help is the quality of the student athletes, who are driven to excel themselves, with academics as their personal #1 priority.
Which leads to my next question... Is this the stated #1 goal because we are changing who we recruit, and will need to more overtly support the new caliber student athletes who may not be as academically elite as their predecessors?
From a strictly academic standpoint, we were not broken, so no need to change anything or increase focus in this specific area. Why make it a #1 priority unless it needs to be, because we are changing the face of our student athletes in the hope of being more competitive in the stated big 3 sports?
I don't mind picking up a few standout athletes in MBB and FB that don't cut the academic mustard so we can compete with the likes of JMU. However if there is a broad relaxation of academic standards for all student athletes, the character of W&M is being changed for the worse and the faculty, administration alumni and BOV should not stand for it.