This summer, UTSA Athletics will be profiling its numerous areas to provide an inside look into how each unit serves Roadrunners’ student-athletes.
In this edition, we sat down with Shanda Hayden, Senior Associate Athletics Director for Student-Athlete Academic Services, to discuss the Student-Athlete Academic Services unit.
Q: How does your department service UTSA student-athletes?
Shanda Hayden: “Our main purpose is to guide students to graduation, while also maintaining academic eligibility. We provide a very holistic, inclusive, wrap-around academic support system with multiple layers. We don’t do a one-size-fits-all. I view it as we put together an academic support package for student-athletes. We keep them connected to campus. Our main goal is graduation and I always say that if you are working towards graduation, eligibility happens. One of the hardest questions to answer is when people ask ‘What do you do?” because it’s not a one-sentence answer. Usually, people think we are helping student-athletes pick classes or we are tutoring them. I explain that I am helping them discover their path academically and what their journey is going to look like. I am guiding them to help them select classes and to explore what they want to do. So much of what we do is helping them plan for life beyond college and understanding what the connection is between what they’re learning in the classroom and how they’re going to take that with them. We are in charge of all academic support to help them graduate. We coordinate tutors, we coordinate academic mentors, here at UTSA we have student-success coaches. Where our job is different than a campus advisor is that we have the entire NCAA academic eligibility portion. We have a whole chapter – chapter 14 – and we have to know all of those rules. We have to educate coaches and student-athletes on all of those rules. The goal of the NCAA in creating academic requirements was to help make sure student-athletes graduate. We have to make sure we are tracking all of that behind the scenes. We are an office that is more behind the scenes, but so crucial to the success to so many of our students. We work with students who have learning exceptionalities and that is something that can transfer over to their sport, so we sometimes are helping coaches with tips on how to do instruction in meetings. Individuals learn differently. We may be the office that people aren’t thinking about but without this support, some of our athletes would not be able to compete and succeed academically.”
Q: How many members are on your team and what roles do they serve?
Shanda Hayden: “We’ve had the opportunity to grow our staff and we currently have seven full-time staff members and two graduate assistants. With my position overseeing the department as Senior Associate AD, we have two Assistant Athletics Directors. We have an Assistant AD for Football and an Assistant AD for Olympic Sports. We have three academic coordinators who are assigned multiple sports and then a new position added last year is our Coordinator of Learning Services and Learning Specialist for Football.”
Q: What makes UTSA a leader in your area?
Shanda Hayden: “Every institution has academic support in some capacity but I think what makes us different is the people and how we provide the support. I think it is easy to talk about a holistic approach but what does that mean? To me, we are truly embodying what it means to have a holistic approach. I often say we are more like life coaches because we do establish relationships with our student-athletes which, of course, helps create buy-in to what we want to help them do academically. It’s really and truly a partnership. Something else that I think makes UTSA special is that we have entire coach support. That is not something that you can find everywhere. I think that every head coach may say academics is important, but that is one of the reasons that I chose to come here because that truly is how our coaching staff is. With the culture that we’ve created, we really are looking at and caring for the student-athlete as an entire person. When they come into our meetings it’s not just about what their grades are and what deadlines they have coming up, we’re checking in with how they are doing. We have some different layers of support that we require for different levels of students depending on where they’re at.”
Q: What is the most rewarding aspect of your role?
Shanda Hayden: “In my experience, having worked on a main campus and in athletics, it is to impact the development of a student and be able to see the impact you are having. When working on a main campus, you may see a student a few times a semester. For us to have the opportunity from recruitment all the way through graduation – and that is the best day of the year. That is culmination of why we do what we do, and why we come to work every day. Seeing that impact, helping students graduate, helping them find their passion and what they want to do academically and professionally.”
Q: UTSA as an institution and as an athletics department has a high proportion of first-generation college students. Are there any support services in place specifically to help first-generation college students?
Shanda Hayden: “I was a first-generation student myself. UTSA is special in that we are a first-generation-serving institution along with being a Hispanic-Serving Institution. We have an Office of First Generation. I think that makes UTSA very special. We have an office dedicated to providing this support and not a lot of universities can say they do that. This institution provides a lot of support from day one. I didn’t have that when I was an undergraduate. To me, that is also what is rewarding; I am one of many examples that you can achieve. We are walking them through things, connecting them with campus resources and making sure they know what is available. Most new college students don’t know what they don’t know, so we’re helping them ask the questions they need to be asking. We are connecting them with a lot of different resources that can help them be successful. That’s something that I’m really, really proud of here at UTSA.”
Q: What advice do you have for students or student-athletes who may be interested in going into your profession?
Shanda Hayden: “First, really research what it means to be in Student-Athlete Academic Services. It is not an area that anyone gets into for the money, power or glory. You have to have those other reasons driving you. I typically say to talk to people who do this. If you want to just see what someone does, do an informational interview. I created an internship as an undergrad in student services and that’s how I learned about academic advising, and then discovered that was my passion. Meeting with their campus advisors, because everyone has a campus advisor, that’s a great start if they aren’t a student-athlete. Just see what different people do, how they help them, and then asking questions to get a better idea.”
Q: What type of educational background is required for your role?
Shanda Hayden: “There is no specific major or degree. You definitely have to have an undergraduate degree. Typically, in athletics academics, a master’s degree is required. Typically, in a main campus role, a master’s degree is not required. It can be in any field. Related fields we would prefer would be higher education – my master’s was in higher education administration – communications, psychology. What we tell our students is that it’s really the skillset that you’re bringing, the critical thinking and the skills you are learning in the classroom, not necessarily the specific content.”