The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- March 29, 1999

Debate pits stricter standards against institutional autonomy

Liberal transfer rule has resulted in ongoing Division II discussion

BY DAVID PICKLE
STAFF WRITER

Consider this situation.

An academic nonqualifier enrolls in a junior college upon graduation from high school. After a year, the student-athlete has posted a grade-point average of 2.000 in 24 semester hours, 15 of which are in physical education and recreation courses.

Should that individual be able to transfer and be immediately eligible to compete?

Division I has said "no," that nonqualifiers going the junior college route must acquire an associate of arts degree before they can be immediately eligible.

Division II, however, has a more permissive two-year college transfer policy. Some administrators in the division believe the policy is leading to academic and athletics abuses, but the position of the division's leadership is that this is not an area where national legislation is appropriate.

What is the Division II policy for partial qualifiers and nonqualifiers?

The test for immediate eligibility has two parts, and the first one is easy: Any student-athlete who has graduated from a two-year college is eligible to compete immediately.

The rub comes with the second part. It provides for immediate eligibility for any student-athlete who has presented a minimum of 24 semester (or 36 quarter) hours of transferable-degree credit with a minimum cumulative grade-point average of 2.000. Also, for those who enrolled after August 1, 1996, the legislation requires completion of an average of at least 12 semester or quarter hours of transferable-degree credit acceptable toward any baccalaureate-degree program at the certifying institution for each academic term of full-time attendance.

At the 1999 NCAA Convention, institutions from the Gulf South Conference sponsored legislation -- Proposal No. 3 -- that would add a requirement that no more than 50 percent of a student-athlete's total number of transferable-degree credits could be earned from physical education or recreation-activity courses.

Proposal No. 3 -- opposed by the Division II Presidents Council and the Academic Requirements Committee -- was defeated, 165-68-1.

This issue, however, is more of an ongoing discussion than a one-year legislative flash. More aggressive legislation was proposed and withdrawn in 1996, and legislation similar to Proposal No. 3 was defeated in 1998.

The sponsors remain convinced that the current rule invites both competitive and academic abuses, and they appear motivated to stay after the issue.

The subject is so tenacious that the Division II Academic Requirements Committee spent most of its February meeting reviewing the issue. Its conclusion: No change in the current legislation is merited.

'Cannot legislate morality'

Mary Lisko, faculty athletics representative at Augusta State University and chair of the Academic Requirements Committee, said the committee is not convinced that this issue should be dealt with on a national basis.

"Is there really an issue?" she asked.

Although the rationale accompanying Proposal No. 3 said that graduation rates for junior college transfers are low, Lisko said there is no research to back it up. Critics say the issue should be addressed nationally because the abuse is national in scope, but Lisko believes that institutions and conferences should set their own standards in this area and that, in fact, most already do.

"You can't legislate morality," Lisko said. "This should be at the discretion of the individual institution. We don't want to micro-manage academic issues in this way."

Lisko also said that the transfer regulation is largely self-policing. In the first place, she said many institutions will not accept more than two hours of physical education from transfer students. In the cases where students are P.E. majors, she said almost all institutions would require that more than half of the credits be earned from the certifying institution.

Bobby Tucker, faculty athletics representative at Valdosta State University and a vocal supporter of change, is unpersuaded.

Tucker's concern rests with junior colleges where athletically gifted nonqualifiers are kept eligible for two-year competition by loading up on P.E. courses in their freshman year. After a year, they either can continue to compete at the junior college or they can transfer to Division II. At that point, they may not transfer to a Division I school and be eligible.

Lisko said that in cases where the academic preparedness of the athlete is obviously deficient, Division II institutions typically will shy away simply because they know they will not be able to keep the athlete eligible over the long term.

"Why recruit an athlete who you know can't do the work when you know you will have that athlete for only a year?" she asked.

But Tucker said the temptation is too great.

"Will some schools use these athletes for only one year?" he asked. "You'd better believe they will."

Council must choose

The Academic Requirements Committee has explored alternatives. It looked at applying the 25-50-75 satisfactory-progress rule to junior college transfers but decided that the record-keeping was too burdensome for personnel-short Division II athletics staffs. It thought of requiring a core curriculum for junior college transfers, but concluded that such an approach would fall into the same definitional traps (what constitutes a core course?) already experienced by the NCAA Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse.

The issue has placed the division's Presidents Council in an interesting position where it has to make a choice between academic preparation and institutional autonomy.

Tucker said he has heard that the Presidents Council may be rethinking its opposition to more restrictive standards.

However, Gladys Stiles-Johnston, chancellor of the University of Nebraska at Kearney and the person who will chair the Presidents Council when legislative decisions are made this fall, said that although the presidents "will continue to be cautious," they appear to believe that the most recent modification to the two-year college transfer rule in Division II has not been in place long enough to judge its effects. She said that the general belief is that the current legislation may be appropriate for the division.

"We did not dream that the Presidents Council would be against our proposal," Tucker said. "Look at the legislation. How could you be against it?"

During its February meeting, the Academic Requirements Committee discussed one other element that might be involved.

Some are concerned that restricting what credits transfer may leave institutions caught between state and NCAA regulations. In Pennsylvania, for example, the state's Board of Governors has ruled that four-year institutions in the state system must accept all courses from the state's community college system.

Tucker said that isn't the issue, though. He said NCAA regulations have nothing to do with what credits an institution may accept. Instead, they pertain only to whether a student is permitted to compete as a varsity athlete.

After the extensive February review, the Academic Requirements Committee does not find itself far from where it started. Lisko said the committee plans no further examination on its own in the absence of some unexpected development.

Of course, the membership is always free to submit legislation for the annual Convention.

"We are willing to review anything," Lisko said. "We will review membership submissions, and maybe there are issues that we didn't address.

"But we addressed a lot of them."