Didn’t do favors for UA athlete, former department head says
by La Monica Everett-haynes on Apr. 12, 2006, under Education, Local, SportsNava says he left job because of resentment by classics professors
Nava
Allegations that he gave a Wildcats basketball player academic favors are false, said the man who just stepped down as interim head of the University of Arizona classics department.
A group of classics professors has said Alexander Nava allowed the student to enroll in two graduate-level classics courses without prerequisites.
Nava did not name the student. But Chris Rodgers is the only player who fits the letter’s description because he is the only graduate on the team roster.
Nava said the student is doing the coursework. He would not say when he last had contact with the student.
Nava’s resignation was announced in a campus memo Monday.
He said he didn’t leave the position because of the accusations, but because of a long-standing rift between classics and religious studies faculty and the “select number” of classics professors who resented him for getting the yearlong job in August.
“I came into a very difficult situation, and it was my very first experience in an administrative role,” said Nava, also a professor of religious studies, a program in the classics department. “I thought it would be a wonderful learning opportunity.”
But it wasn’t, he said.
On March 28, eight upper-level classics professors signed a “vote of no confidence” in Nava and addressed their concerns in a letter to College of Humanities dean Charles Tatum.
While Tatum has refused to talk about the issue, citing student and personnel privacy laws, Nava is trying to clear his name.
“Everyone who knows me knows that I’m committed to integrity and I’m committed to all of my students,” he said. “The majority of them are not athletes, but no one said anything about my work with the nonathletes.”
