National Collegiate Athletic Association

The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- October 12, 1998

Division I -- Core course review panel seeks more contemporary legislation

The NCAA Core Course Review Committee, which met September 14-15 in Indianapolis, discussed the possibility of updating current legislation that would reflect recent changes in secondary education.

The committee met with several representatives from various high-school agencies and discussed the need to revise NCAA legislation regarding core courses to provide better descriptors that more accurately depict contemporary subject matter being taught in various academic disciplines.

The committee believes that the current legislation, written several years ago, does not account for changes in interdisciplinary courses now offered at the secondary level or for courses taught through the Internet.

The committee reiterated that such legislative revisions would not be intended to lessen the standards used to define core courses.

The committee will continue to work to develop revised legislation and submit those proposals to the appropriate bodies in the governance structure.

The group also discussed an alternative method of processing applicants from nontraditional schools for initial eligibility. Currently these students are certified those cases through the waiver process, but the committee is seeking to create a procedure whereby those students would apply for preliminary certification through the NCAA.

The committee is looking to develop a comparative scale that could be used to determine a nontraditionally schooled prospect's academic standing, much like the NCAA Foreign Student Records Consultants have done in determining initial eligibility for foreign student-athletes.

The committee selected a representative from each academic discipline to serve as reviewers of such applications from prospective student-athletes from nontraditional schools.

In other actions, the committee:

  • Reviewed a sample course taught through the Internet and noted that many Internet courses are quality academic courses, but the credibility of the Internet interaction has not yet been resolved. The committee appointed a task force to develop some detailed guidelines and criteria for subsequent review of Internet courses.

  • Discussed concerns from high schools regarding the NCAA not granting core-course credits for independent-study and correspondence courses, and considered a set of criteria that could be used to permit such courses to be used as core courses. The committee will deliberate further regarding this issue before taking any formal action.

  • Voted to recommend to the Division I Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet and the Division II Management Council that the number of institutional representatives in the "additional academic" area of the committee be increased from two to four.