The Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics has decided it wants to resume its high-profile review of reform in college sports sometime next fall. Though no details have been finalized about what the new Commission might look like, how often it would meet or the topics it would undertake, the Commission has at least determined that the time is right for its re-appearance on the college sports reform scene.

The Knight Foundation conducted a meeting last month in Washington, D.C., to discuss the notion of reconvening.

"I would categorize this meeting as an exploratory session of the members of the commission who still are sitting presidents," said Knight Commission Chair Bill Friday, president emeritus at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Friday had co-chaired the previous two Knight Commissions in 1991 and 2001 with former University of Notre Dame President Theodore M. Hesburgh, but Hesburgh told the Knight Foundation that he would not be a member of the new group.

Presidents who met in Washington, D.C., were Michael Adams from the University of Georgia, Carol Cartwright of Kent State University, Mary Sue Coleman of the University of Michigan, Thomas K. Hearn of Wake Forest University, Gerald Turner of Southern Methodist University and Charles E. Young of the University of Florida. The Knight Foundation also invited two presidents who had not served on previous Commissions -- Elson Floyd of the University of Missouri system and Steve Sample of the University of Southern California.

Friday said no decisions came from the meeting, "except that we will continue our involvement in what's going on in higher education." He said what prompted the meeting and the desire to reconvene as a Commission next fall were the recent cases of academic fraud in high-profile Division I-A institutions.

"This raises the most fundamental of all issues, which is the integrity of the university itself," Friday said. "This is where you have to draw the line -- and draw it harshly and clearly."

The Commission has supported the NCAA academic reform initiatives currently under way. Friday said the incentives/disincentives structure in particular has garnered interest from Commission members. But once the footings of academic reform are solidly in place, Friday said the next topic for more intensive Commission review would probably be fiscal integrity.

"The next arena has to be the cost issues," he said. "The debt factor in college sports is reaching crisis proportions."

It wouldn't be the first time the Knight Commission has expressed concern about fiscal integrity. The original Commission in 1991 called for a "one-plus-three" model in which the "one" (presidential control) is directed toward the "three" -- academic integrity, financial integrity and independent certification. And in its most recent report issued in 2001, the Commission recommended several changes regarding the escalating costs in college sports, including a reduction in Division I-A football scholarships and bringing coaches' compensation more in line with other institutional salaries.

The new Commission in the fall also might represent another recommendation from the 2001 report, which called for the creation of an external "watchdog" group that would "keep the problems of college sports visible, provide moral leadership in defense of educational integrity, monitor progress toward reform goals and issue periodic report cards."

"The Knight Commission recommended establishing an 'institute' that would not function the way the previous Commissions functioned," Friday said. "It would not be a group that meets monthly and conducts hearings, but a more detached group of people who nevertheless are very well-informed and know what has to be done to protect what we all are so interested in protecting -- the integrity of intercollegiate sports."

Whether the Commission that reconvenes next fall fulfills that role is unclear. Knight Foundation President Hodding Carter did not want to speculate on the composition of a new Commission or the role it might play, but he did say the group, as did those preceding it, will have an important voice.

"The Knight Foundation will be very interested in hearing from this group about its ideas on how a new approach might be of use," Carter said.

Whatever role the group adopts, it likely will work closely with the NCAA. Friday said the meeting in Washington, D.C., included an "instructive and enlightening" two-hour session with NCAA President Myles Brand.

Brand, who acknowledges the importance of the Knight Commission to the NCAA over the past decade, said the Association looks forward to the group's continued assistance.

"A great deal of credit as the catalyst for the current academic reform goes to the report of the first Knight Commission a little more than a decade ago," Brand said. "However the Commission determines it can help focus attention and action on the need for continuous improvement of intercollegiate athletics, the NCAA will work with the group and provide input."