UNC drops swim test requirement

rdu.news14.com ^ | 30/04/03

[Jakarta ex-pat]

UNC-Chapel Hill dropped the swim test from its curriculum. It's one of many changes that take effect in the fall of 2006.

The swim test has been a Tar Heel tradition since the 1940's.

Students must jump in the pool, swim 50 yards, and stay afloat for five minutes.

The faculty council said being able to swim is important but should not be an academic requirement.

Other changes include a greater emphasis on foreign culture, language, and diversity.

[Jakarta ex-pat]

I'll let you highlight.

The war on campus has already been won.

Don't let anyone tell you anything different.

"Tradition.........Tradition...Tradition."

"Fiddler on the roof."

[MikeD]

This change is just sickening. The only reason I know how to swim is because of the graduation requirement at UNC. The test isn't hard -- you swim one lap and don't die in five minutes. I took the swimming class after not stepping into a pool for ten years and passed easily. It's not that freaking hard...

Sigh.

MD

[Mr. Mojo]

Other changes include a greater emphasis on foreign culture, language, and diversity.

Just once I'd like to see changes at a school which include a greater emphasis on math, science, English, civics, American history, Western Civilization, ethics, and free market economics.

[Eva]

We had tougher swimming requirements than that to graduate from high school! Oh well, I guess the Middle Eastern students aren't used to immersing themselves in water.

[wbill]

Wife's friends are all Carolina grads. Was playing drinking games with them one night and we played 'Categories' (for those not in the know, that's when a topic is suggested, and play goes around the table listing subjects in the topic - ie, 'Beer brands'...'Bud', 'Miller', etc. First one not to come up with a subject, drinks. But I digress)

I selected 'Presidents of the United States', thinking it would be an easy one. Nope. They got Clinton, Bush I+II, Reagan, Washington, and Lincoln. That's it.

I also needed to explain that John Adams and John Quincy Adams were not the same person.

As an aside, this group includes 1 PHD, 3 Masters Students who, ironically, are in education/administration, and 1 person who, even more ironically, is a History major.

Still don't know what wife has in common with these people. I'm going to send my kids to State.

[ClearCase_guy]

I don't want to cross over any lines here, but is this related to diversity on campus? I mean, it's pretty standard to speculate some people folks don't float as well as others -- and never seem to show up on Olympic swim teams. Maybe the school is afraid of a lawsuit claiming the swim test is racist.

[Mr. Mojo]

They couldn't get Nixon, Ike, JFK, FDR, or Teddy R? That's frightening.

[Servant of the Nine]

Oh well, I guess the Middle Eastern students aren't used to immersing themselves in water.

Neither are the French.

So9

[Our man in washington]

I don't think there's anything to buoyancy and race, but it is true that inner-city blacks often don't have as many opportunities to use pools. You're just not going to find a pool in every backyard in the Bronx. That's not racism--just a fact.

Having recently been through Navy boot camp, I can tell you that almost all the people in our unit who had never swam before were black. The leaders at our boot camp realized this, and eliminated the swim requirement so that the black people wouldn't feel singled out.

Just kidding. The Navy had some SEALs on hand to train the non-swimmers how to swim. By the end of boot camp, most of the non-swimmers were able to pass the swim test.

Let's face it: people from different backgrounds bring different sets of skills to the table. For example, the black recruits tended to march better than the white recruits. Differing skills is no sign of anyone's inate superiority or inferiority.

Anyway, if any UNC graduate falls off a boat and drowns, will the leaders of UNC be proud of the decision? Will they be willing to say at the funeral that politically correct indoctrination is more important than basic survival skills?

[Mr. Bird]

When I first heard about the swim test, I thought it was silly. But it is probably one of the more practical requirements a school can have. Who says that a university must only teach abstract knowledge? Knowing how to swim is pretty damned important.

[AnAmericanMother]

Both my high school and my college have a swimming test requirement. My grandfather graduated Georgia Tech in 1918 - that was IIRC the first school to introduce a swimming requirement for all undergraduates, taught by my grandfather's friend Fred Lanoue (the "Drownproofing" man). Grandfather took my mother over to Tech to take swimming lessons from Lanoue himself.

It seems to me if the college has any large bodies of water (my high school campus has a good-size creek running right through the middle, and my college is bordered by a lake) it's a responsibility to make sure all their students can swim - whether it's "academic" or not. (Are they going to get rid of P.E., all elective sports, the college health service because they're "not academic"?)

Something's going on here under the surface (so to speak).

[King David]

What a joke. When I was a 10 year old Tenderfoot Boy Scout, I was able to earn the Mile-Swim merit badge while at summer camp. All you had to do was swim 77 laps of the pool. To have to swim such a short distance and stay afloat for just 5 minutes is a joke. How in the world is this even a requirement for a college student?

[wbill]

I thought that they should ask for a tuition refund.

I'll grant that it is a drinking game, so that we were all a little inebriated. But still.......

I'd be hard pressed to come up with all 43 off the top of my head, but I know that I could do better than a half-dozen.

Used to be able to get all (at the time) 40 from memory. Also, the capitals of all 50 states. Also, all 26 (at the time) baseball teams and relevant stats for most players. But, time and age have eroded all that info. Might be because I've got a little more to think about, now.

[Timesink]

Why is this a problem? If you can't swim by the time you're 18, there's probably a pretty good reason for it ... such as that you might HATE SWIMMING, hate the beach, hate pools, etc.

I went to college for academics, not political and social indoctrination. I don't need them "requiring" this any more than they would "require" I be able to pass a driving course and prove I could cook "well-balanced meals" for myself for dinner. Leave my private life to me. Give me some BOOKS.

[Hatteras]

"Students must jump in the pool, swim 50 yards, and stay afloat for five minutes."

I did this when I was 6 years old and pushing mama to let me tryout for the local swim team. I actually swam my first meet the following summer when I was 7. As a lifeguard however, I had to rescue about 7 or 8 adults in my four-year summer career. As I recall, 2 or 3 victims were in five feet of water.

As a 17 year old, I vividly remember the look of fear and panic on one 60 year old lady as she was losing her battle to keep her chin above water. It was a textbook rescue as she tried to fling herself around my neck, I blocked her and spun her around only I didn't have to put her in any hold. I grabbed her around her waste and settled her down and convinced her that I was standing on the bottom and we were in 4-1/2 feet of water. She was a little embarassed but I helped her to the side where she thanked me. The next day she brought me a cake!

Most kids have to meet those swimming requirements in order to enter the deep end at their local pools or be left alone at the pool by their parents. My dad always emphasized the point that I have since passed on to my kids, both wonderful swimmers: The world is covered 2/3 with water. One day you're going to need to know how to swim.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Both my high school and my college have a swimming test requirement.

I will have to admit surprise by this. None of the schools I attended, including college, had these requirements nor did any of them have a pool. However, by age ten I had learned to swim at a local swimming hole, a lake formed when gravel dredging operations hit an aquifer, and everyone I knew could swim. Having it as a school requirement is not far removed from some of the liberal nonacademic requirements.

[JohnnyZ]

Students must jump in the pool, swim 50 yards, and stay afloat for five minutes.

What a bunch of pansies!!! At my school you had to do ten round trips across the pool (not exactly laps so I'm not sure what to call it), 10 minutes treading water (in vertical position) and ten more round trips.

Frickin' ghetto public school education . . .

[wbill]

Who says that a university must only teach abstract knowledge

When I first heard of the swim requirement, I thought that it was pretty silly. But it makes a lot more sense than hours of training in diversity and multiculturalism. At least you can accomplish something, when you're finished.

[Hatteras]

Timesink, although I grew up around water and love it, I agree with you (Even though I did gain some course credits with my scuba classes) I'm actually surprised that it WAS a requirement. But this action by UNC shouldn't be a major issue at all.

I would bet that the swim requirements started getting some resistance due to the ever increasing international student population. Now, that's not as racist a statement as it may seem, I think college was once all fun and games but in the past decade or so, due to the increasing international population, colleges have generally become more serious about education. Chinese and Japenese students are not coming to the U.S. to learn how to swim and American students either know how to swim or don't care.

Heck, the way I see it, at freshman orientation, I took a few tests for credit and to leapfrog some of the 101 courses. Maybe they could take the test then for a couple of bonus credit points?

[GOP_1900AD]

Western Civilization back when it was in growth mode: "Upleveling." Western Civilization in suicidal decline: "Downleveling."