The NCAA News - News and Features

August 17, 1998

NCAA prepares for official kickoff of fellows program

The NCAA Fellows Leadership Development Program, which recently completed a successful pilot program, will be launched in its entirety later this year.

The goal of the program is to enhance employment and leadership opportunities for ethnic minorities and women at the senior management level of intercollegiate athletics administration.

The program was first proposed in 1994 by the NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee and the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics, and was endorsed by what was then the NCAA Presidents Commission and Council.

A pilot version of the program was developed in 1995 and the first group of fellows was accepted in 1996. Those fellows graduated at the 1998 NCAA Convention.

"The purpose of the pilot was to see what worked and what didn't and to make the full program as successful as possible," said Stanley D. Johnson, NCAA director of professional development.

Applications for the program will be available in late August. Interested individuals may contact Donnetta Moorman, (dmoorman@ncaa.org) NCAA professional development coordinator, for an application. All applications for this year's program are due back to the national office by September 22.

To be eligible for the NCAA Fellows Leadership Program, candidates must be an ethnic minority or female athletics staff member, and they must be recommended by their institution's president or their conference commissioner. Their application must also be supported by the athletics director at their institution.

"The institution's chief executive will be very involved in the fellowship process," explained Moorman. "We're proposing that the president and the athletics director will be intimately involved with the program, and one of them may be that person's mentor.

Moorman also points out that, except for off-site meetings and workshops, fellows will remain at their institutions for the duration of the 18-month fellowship, which will last from January 1999 to June 2000.

In addition to working under the direction of their mentor, the fellows will participate in NCAA retreats that will include seminars and special training in subjects applicable to intercollegiate athletics, such as marketing, budgeting, booster relations and management.

Moorman said the program is designed to foster leadership within college athletics and to provide a means for women and ethnic minorities to develop the skills to match their aspirations.

"It's a way of growing your own talent, so to speak," she said. "And it will be a cost-effective way for institutions to do that because one of the tasks the fellows will have is to go back to their institution and train others."

The fellows will be chosen from all three divisions based on their individual merit, with no divisional requirements.