The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- August 16, 1999

Minority committee pursues partnerships to advance issues

The Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee (MOIC) has never lacked for initiatives or issues to be developed and steered through the NCAA governance structure.

Instead, the committee's concern has related more to managing the process. So, at a meeting July 7-9 in New York City, the MOIC spent most of its time discussing links with other groups and organizations -- and influential individuals -- that could assist it in carrying out initiatives designed to increase opportunities for minorities in intercollegiate athletics. The concepts could go a long way in expediting several committee concerns.

Heading MOIC's recommendations is an initiative developed in conjunction with the Committee on Women's Athletics (CWA) to conduct a summit that would target issues regarding women of color. The summit would enjoin representatives from groups such as the Women's Sports Foundation, Black Women in Sport Foundation, the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators and others to discuss ways to promote the development of minority female opportunities in athletics administration.

If approved by the NCAA Executive Committee, the summit would be conducted before the end of the calendar year and would allow members of the MOIC and CWA to take ideas generated from the summit back to their respective committees in order to propose legislation or create initiatives that would address those issues.

"We've spent a lot of time looking at minority issues," said Charles Whitcomb, faculty athletics representative at San Jose State University and chair of the MOIC. "But the committee members feel that we haven't addressed issues regarding women of color in athletics administration as effectively as we would have liked. This type of summit would allow us to develop initiatives in a partnership with NCAA groups and others in order to pursue a more fluent approach to resolving our concerns."

Whitcomb said that while both the MOIC and the CWA have developed many successful initiatives aimed at increasing minority and women's opportunities, issues relating specifically to women of color often are addressed on a general minority or gender basis and perhaps not as directly as necessary. The summit, he said, would allow participants to assess the depth of the problem and then partner to develop solutions.

"First of all, we need to decide if this is as much of a concern as we consider it to be," Whitcomb said. "Then we need to determine how we can bring greater media attention to this problem and how can we develop some initiatives that would have greater end results -- in essence, to develop a measure of effectiveness.

"And this isn't just an issue for predominantly white institutions, but for predominantly black institutions as well. Women at these schools have not advanced to upper-level administrative positions either."

Presidential involvement

Another initiative the committee discussed was the concept of presidential involvement at the committee level that might help expedite action plans to increase diversity efforts on campuses. The committee noted that the recently appointed Ad Hoc Committee to Review Issues Related to Gender and Ethnicity -- through an extensive audit of NCAA institutional practices -- has begun to review the issues and promote change quickly, primarily due to presidential involvement.

Because the ad hoc group is a temporary body, however, the MOIC discussed the concept of increasing the size of the committee to allow for slots to be filled by presidents from each division. The concept was broached during a joint meeting with the CWA in which both supported the idea of proposing legislation to add presidential representation to each group.

"Presidents talk to presidents," Whitcomb said. "We've known from the start that you need to be able to move recommendations and concerns through the ranks; if not, they get lost in channels of red tape. Because change tends to be slow -- and because we feel that we haven't reached a level of equity within the Association -- things need to move much more rapidly. With representation from a presidential group, we'd have a greater opportunity of getting responses to concerns raised by both committees."

Whitcomb said the ad hoc committee was a good example -- at least in the case of the ethnicity and gender audit -- of an expeditious collection of information.

"Had the MOIC and CWA asked for the same type of information," Whitcomb said, "it would still be tied up in the process and wouldn't have received as much attention. Requests regarding those types of concerns need to come from those to whom the Association is held accountable, and that's presidents."

Whitcomb said the concept of expanding the committees was still in the preliminary stages of development. But he pointed to the former NCAA Presidents Commission subcommittee to monitor diversity issues as precedent for presidential involvement in minority and gender issues.

"There are presidents out there who are committed to advancing opportunities for minorities and women in athletics," Whitcomb said. "And if we give them the opportunity to serve on our committees, they will."

The committee plans to approach the Division I Board of Directors about the possibility of proposing legislation to expand both committees.

Other highlights

Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee
July 7-9/New York City