The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- November 23, 1998

CEOs help educate provisional members in regional sessions

BY DAVID PICKLE
STAFF WRITER

Division II recently displayed some of the best evidence to date that chief executive officers have bought in to the new membership structure.

On four days in October, CEOs from the Division II Presidents Council met face-to-face with presidents and other representatives from the division's 26 new provisional members.

The nine representatives from the Presidents Council who attended the four regional meetings educated the new members on what the NCAA expects of them. The provisional members, meanwhile, sought information on how to meet those expectations.

"This demonstrates the commitment that presidents have made to the new structure," said Charles D. Dunn, president of Henderson State University and a member of the Division II Presidents Council. "We want it to work, and we want it to work so that it benefits the student-athlete. To get nine very busy people to say they'll do this, that speaks a lot for how important this is."

Educational assessment

The 26 institutions are beginning their four-year provisional membership period. They must complete the Division II educational assessment that is required of all new members.

Mary T. Gardner, athletics director at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania and chair of the Division II Membership Committee, said that this first step was a good one.

"It was a great opportunity for sharing information," she said. "With anyone coming into the membership, that first meeting is a little overwhelming. I think they realized it's a very broad-ranged spectrum of responsibilities."

Jim Johnson, NCAA membership services representative, said that each of the four regional meetings addressed three areas: institutional control, financial issues and personnel issues (that is, what is expected of various positions such as athletics directors, compliance officers, faculty athletics representatives and senior woman administrators).

The chief executive officer from each new provisional member was required to attend one of four regional orientation sessions. The CEO also was free to bring other representatives from the institution. New members typically were represented by between three and five individuals.

Dunn said the new members were especially interested in financial matters.

"That's always a concern," he said. "People want to know, 'Can I be competitive? Am I joining an organization where I'm spending a modest amount while everybody else is spending the maximum?'

Dunn said that in his session in Denver, the new members were able to compare his NCAA experiences with those of Jerry E. McGee, president of Wingate University. Wingate is a small, private university, while Henderson is a mid-sized public institution.

Even though Henderson is mid-sized, Dunn told the new members that his institution is able to be competitive in football without providing the maximum allotment of 36 scholarships. Few institutions provide the maximum number of grants-in-aid, he said.

NCAA testimonials

Three of the orientation sessions were attended by two members of the Division II Presidents Council and the other by three. Johnson said each of them gave a "testimonial" describing their experiences as NCAA members.

"They also talked about the educational assessment and about what is expected of them in Year One," Johnson said. "They received an overview of the Division II structure and got a crash course on the Institutional Self-Study Guide."

The sessions were conducted October 5 in Newark, New Jersey; October 12 in Charlotte, North Carolina; October 20 in Denver; and October 27 in Atlanta. Members of the Membership Committee also attended each of the sessions (Gardner, James W. Watson of West Liberty State University, Donald W. Lyons of Kentucky State University and Doug Palmer of the University of West Florida).

Another educational session is scheduled for the morning of Sunday, January 10 as part of the 1999 NCAA Convention. Gardner said the Membership Committee soon will identify topics for the panel discussion.

Dunn said he would have welcomed a similar process when his institution became an NCAA member in 1992.

"It would have been very helpful," he said. "I went to Anaheim for one pre-Convention meeting that lasted an hour or two. Most of it was Greek to me, but I didn't have the foundation on which to build."

Thanks to the commitment of new and existing members, that foundation is now under construction.