National Collegiate Athletic Association

The NCAA News - News and Features

March 3, 1997

Compliance services get II attention

The NCAA Division II Management Council Transition Team is recommending specific ways of enhancing compliance services for active Division II members.

The recommendations to the NCAA Division II Presidents Council Transition Team are the latest actions in what is now a three-pronged approach to strengthening Division II members' knowledge of and compliance with NCAA rules.

Division II members already have approved an educational assessment program for provisional members, and last year the Presidents Council Transition Team and Division II subcommittee of the NCAA Presidents Commission approved the use of an enhanced Institutional Self-Study Guide.

During its February 21 meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, the Management Council Transition Team focused on the third prong by making specific recommendations on improving compliance services for active members.

Chief among the recommendations are an increase in the number of compliance reviews conducted by the NCAA staff at Division II institutions and the initiation of what is being described as "mini-regional seminars" that would be conducted in conjunction with regularly scheduled conference meetings.

The Management Council, noting that 45 compliance reviews have been conducted at Division II institutions since 1987, is recommending efforts to increase that number to between 15 and 20 annually.

Compliance reviews are designed to help an institution build effective compliance systems. They typically involve a campus visit by an NCAA staff member to conduct interviews, review documents and records, and guide discussions among institutional staff members who are involved in compliance activities.

The NCAA staff member follows up with a written report to the institution's chief executive officer detailing observations on a variety of topics.

In its other chief recommendation, the Management Council is seeking to offer Division II members a cost-effective opportunity to attend educational sessions or forums that are similar in format to the Association's popular regional seminars.

The Management Council is recommending that the NCAA staff schedule such sessions in conjunction with meetings of Division II conferences. The sessions, which would offer information similar to what is available at regional seminars, would reduce costs by minimizing travel (institutional representatives could attend a conference meeting and NCAA compliance seminar during the same trip) and eliminating the need to schedule additional regional seminars to accommodate the possibility of increased attendance.

Also, the content of seminars offered during conference meetings could be tailored to fit the specific interests and needs of a conference's institutions.

These recommendations will be forwarded for consideration at the Presidents Council Transition Team's next meeting in late March.

The presidents also will receive estimates of the total cost of Division II compliance efforts, including costs of the educational assessment program for provisional members.

Although computation of costs of the specific approaches being recommended by the Management Council is not yet completed, it is anticipated that the total cost of division compliance efforts will be significantly less than the approximately $500,000 that has been allocated for those purposes in the new governance structure.

Current estimates place the Association's costs for the educational assessment program at between $100,000 and $150,000 annually, and costs of enhanced compliance services for active members at between $150,000 and $250,000.

If the proposed programs are approved by Division II presidents in March, enhancements for Division II active members could become available during the 1997-98 fiscal year and the first compliance seminars could be offered at conference meetings scheduled during spring and summer 1998.

Because of the current moratorium on new NCAA members, the educational assessment program for provisional members probably will not begin until sometime during 1998.

Committee-appointment process

The Management Council Transition Team also took an important step toward forming Division II-specific committees by recommending the appointment of individuals to the 11-member Division II Nominating Committee.

The entire Management Council participated in the selection of the appointees. The Division II presidents are expected to certify the appointments within the next couple of weeks, enabling the Nominating Committee to proceed with the appointment process for other Division II committees.

The Nominating Committee will be asked to submit recommendations for six general committees -- the Division II Academic Requirements, Championships, Eligibility, Legislation and Membership Committees and the Division II Committee on Infractions -- at the Management Council Transition Team's April 16 meeting.

It is anticipated that the Presidents Council Transition Team will ratify those appointments during late spring or early summer.

The Management Council Transition Team took several other actions relating to committees during its February 21 meetings:

Approved a document containing guidelines for use by the Nominating Committee in soliciting nominees for and recommending appointments to committees. The guidelines were compiled from such sources as legislation governing the structure of committees and recent recommendations of the Division II Governance Project Team.

Assigned representatives to serve in various positions designated for Management Council members on Division II-specific and Association-wide committees.

Agreed to ask staff liaisons to the current NCAA Administrative Review Panel and Infractions Appeals Committee to recommend approaches to establishing Management Council subcommittees to handle issues in Division II like those that are handled by those committees.

Approved an NCAA staff recommendation to establish a three-member subcommittee of the Division II Academic Requirements Committee to handle initial-eligibility waiver requests. Appeals of decisions by the subcommittee would be heard by the Management Council.

Other highlights

Division II Management Council Transition Team
February 21/Kansas City, Missouri

Agreed to proceed with plans to schedule its first "summit meeting" with members of the Division II Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. Tentative plans call for Student-Athlete Advisory Committee members to meet July 27 with the Management Council to discuss and express positions on Division II committee and membership proposals for the 1998 Convention. The meeting will be scheduled in conjunction with a planned July 28-29 meeting of the Management Council in Denver.

The Management Council also acknowledged the current NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee's request that it again consider including student-athletes on the Management Council as voting members. The transition team agreed that it prefers to try the summit meeting approach first. The Management Council believes the approach offers a larger number of student-athletes (one representing each Division II conference) an opportunity to present opinions directly to the Management Council. Transition team members acknowledged that they are willing to give further consideration to the issue of student-athlete involvement in division governance after seeing how the summit meeting approach works.

Learned that a project team has been formed to study Division II student-athletes' eligibility for competition after the 21st birthday and related "balanced competition" issues, as directed by the adoption of 1997 Convention Proposal No. 150.