Academic agreements for university athletes

The classic case: you have a tournament on Thursday, an exam on Friday, and you explain it to the professor hoping they will understand. This 2024 Act turns that conversation into a right with a name and paperwork. If you are a student athlete accredited by your institution — public or private — and compete in a discipline endorsed by the LAI, you can ask for an extension, extra preparation time, postponement of the exam, electronic submission and enrolment priority. Two dates make or break the claim: you hand in your sporting calendar at the beginning of each semester, and you request the benefit within a term of ten days prior to the activity.

Article 3 asks for three things: being “duly accredited” as a student athlete by your academic institution, being “in a cycle of preparation or active participation,” and the discipline being endorsed by the Interuniversity Athletic League. There is an asymmetry in the text worth knowing before you claim. Article 2(2) defines “Student Athlete” as one who represents a public or private institution in any discipline endorsed “by the Interuniversity Athletic League or the Olympic Committee” — both — while Article 2(3) defines “Academic Institution” as one that “has sporting participation agreements with the Interuniversity Athletic League,” and Article 3 conditions the right on a discipline endorsed by the LAI alone. That is: the student definition mentions the Olympic Committee, but the article granting the right does not. We say so because the Act says so, and we do not resolve it.

• Be duly accredited as a student athlete by the academic institution.Verified against the official source
• Be in a cycle of preparation or active participation in a discipline endorsed by the Interuniversity Athletic League.Verified against the official source
• Present, at the beginning of each academic semester, the calendar of sporting activities and competitions.Verified against the official source
• Request the benefit within a term of ten (10) days prior to the sporting activity.Verified against the official source

• Certification that you are a student athlete, issued by the educational institution and signed by the athletic director.
• Evidence of the required training and preparation commitments for the discipline; this may include a practice schedule issued by the athletic department or the division that runs the training.
• Justification of the need to take up the benefits.
• The agreement reached, in writing and signed by both parties, a copy of which is attached to the academic record.

1. 1

   Step 1: At the start of the semester: hand in your sporting calendar

   It is the step that opens everything else and the one most people skip. Article 3 puts it before the benefits: “The student must present at the beginning of each academic semester their calendar of sporting activities and competitions.” Every semester, not once a year. The Act does not say to whom it is handed or in what format, so your institution sets that; what the Act does set is that without that calendar you have not started the process it describes.

2. 2

   Step 2: The ten days, and how they are counted

   Article 3 gives the right “to request, within a term of ten (10) days, prior to the sporting activity.” The reference point is the sporting activity, not the exam or the due date: if the tournament is on the 20th, that is the event the term runs against. Ask in writing and keep proof, because the same article later requires the agreement to be documented.

3. 3

   Step 3: The seven benefits you can ask for

   Article 3 lists them and they are worth reading with their conditions. (a) “Extensions of the term to complete an assignment with a set due date.” (b) “Additional preparation time to sit a scheduled exam.” The first two carry the same rider: “provided this does not violate the academic calendar previously adopted and executed by the academic institution.” (c) “Postponement for a set time of an exam or requested work.” (d) “Availability and access to submitting work by electronic means.” (e) Any other benefit “duly discussed among the institution, the professor and the student, which must be established by agreement between both parties.” (f) “The student athlete shall have priority in enrolment.” And (g) “Assistance from the institution with the requests for academic agreements,” which is a duty of the institution to help you ask, not a favour.

4. 4

   Step 4: The three papers you show the professor

   Note to whom: Article 4 says the student “must present to the respective professors,” not to a central office. And it asks for three things. First: “Certification that they are a student athlete, issued by the educational institution. This certification shall be signed by the academic institution’s athletic director.” The athletic director’s signature is an express requirement. Second: “Evidence of the required training and preparation commitments for any sporting discipline. This may include a practice schedule issued by the athletic department or the division that runs the training.” Third: “Justification of the need to take up the benefits.”

5. 5

   Step 5: The agreement goes in writing and into the record

   This paragraph of Article 3 is what protects the student when the professor changes or when someone does not remember what was agreed: “Every agreement reached, among the educational institution, the professor and the student, must be made in writing and signed by both parties, a copy of which shall be attached to that student’s academic record.” Written, signed, and with a copy in your academic record. If they say yes verbally, ask for it in writing: the Act does not leave that optional.

6. 6

   Step 6: What happens if you do not honour the agreement

   Article 5 is short and direct: if the student athlete who took up the benefits “breaches an agreement duly reached with the educational institution, this shall entail the nullity of that agreement and the return of the academic conditions present at the moment the agreement was reached.” That is, there is no extra punishment the Act invents: the agreement falls and the previous conditions govern again — the original due date, the exam on its date. Worth knowing before asking for an extension you cannot meet.

7. 7

   Step 7: The limit the Act puts on two of the benefits

   Worth being clear about so there is no surprise. Subsections (a) and (b) — the due-date extension and the additional preparation time — are conditioned “provided this does not violate the academic calendar previously adopted and executed by the academic institution.” In practice that means the institutional calendar governs: if granting the extension pushes you past a date on the academic calendar, the Act itself does not back it. The other subsections do not carry that rider in the text.

Within your own institution. The student-athlete certification is issued by the institution and signed by the athletic director; the practice schedule comes from the athletic department or the division that runs the training; and the request for the benefit is presented to the respective professors, per Article 4. Article 3(g) further obliges the institution to assist you with those requests. The Act names no government agency to turn to, publishes no form or office, and we do not invent them.

• Not handing in the sporting calendar at the start of the semester: Article 3 requires it every academic semester.
• Asking for the benefit the day before the exam: the ten-day term runs prior to the sporting activity.
• Counting the ten days from the exam: the reference point the Act sets is the sporting activity.
• Bringing the certification without the athletic director’s signature: Article 4(a) expressly requires it.
• Settling for a verbal “yes”: the agreement must be written, signed and attached to the academic record.
• Forgetting enrolment priority: it is one of the seven benefits Article 3 lists.
• Assuming the extension can run past the academic calendar: subsections (a) and (b) are conditioned on not violating it.
• Expecting an appeal if you are refused: the Act creates no forum, remedy or fine.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Portal de Servicios del Gobierno de Puerto Rico (PR.gov)

  PR.gov

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov