Sports are on hold due to COVID-19 but student athletes are hard at work in the classroom. Student athletes must reach GPA and study hall requirements in order to maintain athletic eligibility. However, with classes and tutoring moving to an exclusive online format, Deputy Director of Athletics Molly Castner, says that student-athlete advisors and tutors have moved quickly in coordination with IT services, Blackboard and Zoom to provide a smooth transition to online learning and tutoring for all student athletes.
Very proud of our advisors in how they quickly stepped up and made sure that our tutors had Zoom accounts, made sure our student athletes are setting up those Zoom accounts and had every, I think, ready to go prior to us returning to classes on March 23rd.
Castner says that advisors and tutors still try to maintain the same schedule prior to COVID-19. However, with student athlete located all over the world advisors and tutors have adjusted and are working around the clock to meet the academic needs of student athletes.
Whatever works best for our student athletes we are being flexible, and the advisors are working non-stop. You know that traditional 8-5 workday isn’t a thing anymore, they are working, pretty much around the clock cause of those time zone changes, differences.
Yet, with the Spring 2020 semester coming to an end, Castner wants to finish the semester on a good note.
We got about four weeks of classes and finals, so we are just really grinding right now making sure that we are finishing the semester strong.
Castner added that UTRGV athletes are students first and the priority is graduation.
Reporter Luis Rubio
