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Division I Board wants more examination of diversity issue

The issue, which has become the most-discussed part of the Division I transition process, appeared closer to resolution last month when the NCAA Division I Management Council Transition Team recommended that the Management Council contain a minimum of 14 representatives from each gender and at least seven ethnic minorities. To aid in achieving such representation, the Management Council suggested that each conference would submit four names, which would include at least one woman and one ethnic minority. A subcommittee of the Management Council would be charged with reviewing the selections and making recommendations to the Management Council and the Board for final selection.

However, the Board and the Division I subcommittee of the NCAA Presidents Commission declined to approve the recommendation at this time, and instead formed a subcommittee that will request copies of conference plans for diversity that are required in the new structure and solicit feedback from Division I conferences on ways to address diversity on the Management Council. One of the ways will be what the Management Council already has recommended: conferences offering more selections than there are positions. The other would involve achieving diversity through a rotation system.

The Board, which met June 25 in San Francisco, approved nearly all of the Management Council's recommendations concerning the division's substructure. It decided to sponsor legislation to create a four-cabinet concept as the core of the substructure. A recommendation to require at least 20 percent of the positions in the cabinets in the aggregate to be occupied by ethnic minorities was deferred, pending the report of the subcommittee.

The members of the transition Board subcommittee are Edward B. Fort, North Carolina A&T State University; Carol C. Harter, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Kenneth A. Shaw, Syracuse University (chair); and the Rev. David T. Tyson, University of Portland.

Another decision by the Board related to the ability of the membership to call a special convention. The Management Council had forwarded to the Board a proposal suggested by a member conference that would have permitted the members to call a special convention. The Board declined to support that proposal, noting that the legislative process that was approved at the 1996 Convention offers the membership an opportunity for one-institution, one-vote legislative action at the time of the annual Convention through the override process. The Board agreed that the membership needs to be better-educated about the new legislative process.

The transition Board also modified the transition Management Council's proposal for rotating the chairmanships of the Management Council and the Board of Directors. That group recommended that the chairs of each group would rotate equally among the three subdivisions, with the provision that the chairs would not be from the same division at any one time. Instead, the Commission subcommittee approved a Board recommendation that the chairs of the Board of Directors and Management Council would be elected for two-year, nonrenewable terms, with chairs not permitted to succeed themselves.

It was noted that all members of the bodies are eligible to serve as chairs.

The Board also altered the Management Council's recommendation pertaining to the permissibility of substitutes for Management Council meetings. The Board recommended that each conference be permitted to select one alternate who would be eligible to serve on the Management Council in place of a member who is unable to attend successive meetings, subject to the approval of the chair of the Board of Directors.

That following recommendations from the transition Management Council were approved by the transition Board and the Division I subcommittee of the Presidents Commission:

* A plan for staggering the terms of the Management Council members.

* The means of selecting Division I representatives to Association-wide committees.

* A plan for establishing and administering National Collegiate championships.

* A clarification that the only subdivision championship that is permissible in Division I is in football.

* A Management Council recommendation to sponsor legislation for the 1997 Convention that would provide for a waiver of the proportionality requirements of the Division I revenue guarantees in regard to the academic enhancement, conference grant and special assistance fund components. The waiver provision would provide limited flexibility to the Board in the allocation of revenue within the division.