National Collegiate Athletic Association

The NCAA News - News and Features

September 1, 1997

Division I Board delays work rule, OKs core-course approval review

In its first meeting as the primary governing body of the new Division I structure, the Division I Board of Directors focused on a pair of issues that directly affect student-athletes.

At its August 12 meeting in Atlanta, the Board imposed a one-year moratorium on the implementation of 1997 Convention Proposal No. 62 and also authorized an expedited examination of how to improve the review of high-school core-course work.

Proposal No. 62, which was narrowly approved at the 1997 NCAA Convention, will permit Division I student-athletes to work during the academic year and earn in excess of what an athletics grant would provide, up to an institution's cost of attendance.

The proposal was scheduled to go into effect August 1, 1997. The Board voted to delay the effective date for one year, until August 1, 1998, "to permit further evaluation and development of guidelines and processes to initiate, review and monitor student-athlete employment."

The Board also agreed to accept the Division I Management Council's offer to develop recommendations concerning the effective implementation of the legislation for the Board's review at its January 1998 meeting.

"It is our intent to support the employment opportunities for student-athletes," said Board of Directors Chair Kenneth A. Shaw, chancellor of Syracuse University. "But if this legislation is going to be successful, we have to find ways to make it work on the campus. We aren't there at this point in time, and that is why we delayed the implementation."

The Division I membership adopted the proposal at the January Convention by a vote of 169-150-6. Since then, additional issues have been raised regarding the role of athletics personnel in the employment process, the administrative burden of monitoring compliance and the potential for abuse by some boosters.

Several conferences had requested that the Board use its emergency legislation provisions to delay the effective date, and the Board had discussed the issue at its June meeting. Support of the concept to permit student-athletes to work was affirmed in that meeting, and the Board agreed to survey Division I members in the interim concerning the institutions' interest in delaying the effective date.

More than 80 percent of those responding to the survey supported a delay.

Both Shaw and NCAA Executive Director Cedric W. Dempsey stressed that the decision was to delay implementation and not to kill the legislation.

"We are committed to making the spirit of Proposal 62 happen," Shaw said. "We want to make it happen, and we want it done right."

"The principle is intact," Dempsey said. "The implementation is what needs refinement."

High-school course review

The Board also received recommendations regarding an alternative approach to the current method of core-course review. The current process involves the NCAA Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse evaluating high-school course work in order to ensure that a course meets the definition of a core course.

As a result, a significant and increasing portion of the clearinghouse time has been devoted to core-course evaluation and away from determining prospective student-athlete compliance with initial-eligibility requirements.

The alternative recommendation would shift the primary responsibility for identifying core courses to high schools, which would apply the definitions and guidelines developed by the NCAA.

The Board asked the Division I Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet to review the recommendations and develop a comprehensive plan to implement them as soon as possible. The cabinet and Management Council are charged with reporting to the Board on this matter at the Board's October 1997 meeting.

The Board's action was taken after reviewing a response to the Board's request for recommendations for improvement of the initial-eligibility process without changing the standards for eligibility. The report, made by the NCAA membership services staff, noted that the expense of operating the NCAA Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse has grown to about $1.5 million, in large part because of the costs associated with core-course assessment.

The report noted that the NCAA's current method of evaluating high-school courses has drawn harsh reaction from the public and has alienated the high-school community because:

  • The number of high-school courses is too large to be reviewed thoroughly. The clearinghouse maintains a database of more than one million courses, many of which change from year to year.

  • High-school instruction is evolving, which stymies the NCAA's efforts to develop evaluative criteria that are widely accepted. "For example," the report said, "an interdisciplinary approach to high-school education does not lend itself well to specific measures of instructional content, and the changing nature of 'applied' course work challenges the notion of traditional academic disciplines."

  • High-school counselors and administrators object strenuously to the NCAA's evaluation of high-school core courses.

    The report notes that a primary objection to changing the current approach is that certain high-school administrators could compromise the integrity of the system by identifying virtually all courses as core courses in order to help their students qualify.

    However, the report also noted that the current system offers a similar opportunity through changes in course titles or fabricated responses to questions posed by the clearinghouse or NCAA staff. Still, the sentiment is that some sort of mechanism -- much more limited in scope than the present system -- would need to be maintained to review selected courses on a case-by-case basis.

    "It's important to note that this does not change the Division I initial-eligibility requirements," Shaw said. "It returns determination of core courses to the high schools and permits the clearinghouse to concentrate on evaluation of prospective student-athletes and whether they meet the requirements."

    In other action, the Board reviewed a survey of its members and the Division I Management Council regarding issues facing Division I governance.

    Included in the list are initial-eligibility, Division I-A postseason football, governance implementation issues, agents and amateurism, gender equity and Title IX, student-athlete welfare, budget, and championships.

    The Board directed the staff to develop timelines for each issue and recommend where in the governance structure issues should be referred. It was agreed that this information will help in developing a strategic plan for the division.

    Minutes of the Division I Board of Directors' meeting will be published in The NCAA Register.

    The next meeting of the Board will be October 28-29 in Kansas City, Missouri.