HUNTINGTON BEACH, California -- The Division I Management Council has given the second stage of academic reform some legislative legs, introducing a three-proposal package into Divisions I's newly created single cycle.

Meeting July 21-22, the Council's action turned months of study-group research and membership discussion and debate into a package that, if approved by the Board of Directors in April 2004, will more accurately measure teams' academic performance and hold institutions accountable for recruitment and retention of student-athletes who will obtain their degrees.

The proposals are:

Establishing an Academic Performance Program that measures performance through an Annual Academic and Retention Rate, a calculation that accounts for currently enrolled student-athletes receiving athletics aid by allowing teams to earn "points" for retention and eligibility term by term.

Creating an incentives/disincentives structure that rewards institutions that comply with the parameters established by the Academic Performance Program and penalizes those that do not. Three levels, or filters, of analysis are included in determining those institutions or teams penalized for poor academic performance. Two years of data will be collected before the Board of Directors determines the application of the suggested filters and the specific "cut points" by which penalties and rewards will be administered. Also, four years of data, using the Annual Academic and Retention Rate, will be collected beginning with the 2003-04 academic year before those rewards or penalties are applied.

Establishing a contemporaneous penalty that prohibits an institution from re-awarding a scholarship from a student-athlete who fails to meet eligibility standards and withdraws from the institution to an incoming prospective student-athlete. Because penalties issued under the Academic Performance Program will be determined after the data-collection period, this contemporaneous penalty will provide immediate support for the intended cultural change and behavioral adjustments.

To initiate the data-collection period, the Council is urging the Board of Directors to adopt Proposal No. 02-71 as emergency, noncontroversial legislation later this month. The proposal provides for the collection of eligibility, retention and graduation data for all sports teams beginning with the 2003-04 academic year.

The Council also agreed to encourage the Board to express its commitment to the contemporaneous-penalty concept by notifying all Division I institutions of the Board's intent to adopt the proposal in April 2004 (with an effective date of August 1, 2004). This would effectively put the membership on notice that the contemporaneous penalty would be in place beginning in the fall of 2004, which means that the academic performance of student-athletes this coming year would be subject to the penalty.

"The Board has said it wants to make sure the targeted behavior is changed as soon as possible. The contemporaneous penalty provides for that while data is gathered for the more comprehensive Annual Academic and Retention Rate," said Vanderbilt University Athletics Director Todd Turner, who chairs the Management Council's Working Group on Incentives/Disincentives.

Turner's working group has spent the last several months developing the Academic Performance Program. Because that group reports to the Council, it needed the Council to introduce the proposals into the legislative cycle. Council members noted, however, that their introduction of the proposals did not necessarily mean support or endorsement of the package. The Council agreed that it was important for the membership to have the opportunity to offer amendments to the proposals before the Council officially reviews the package in January 2004.

But the fact that the package has now entered the legislative cycle is welcome news to Turner.

"It's important to remember that these proposals should be considered as a package, and the Council provided for that," Turner said. "The package contains methods for changing behavior quickly through the contemporaneous penalty, and it provides for the collection of data through the Annual Academic and Retention Rate to begin with this coming year."

The new Division I legislative cycle means the membership will have through October 15 to submit any amendments to the proposals. The Management Council will see the proposals, as well as amendments, in October but will not take an initial vote on them until its meeting at the 2004 NCAA Convention. Final approval would come at the Management Council and Board April meetings.

Emergency legislation

In addition to its work on academic reform, the Management Council considered several emergency, noncontroversial legislative proposals. Though the Council's July 21-22 meeting was not a legislative session, the group does have the authority to consider emergency, noncontroversial legislation at each of its four annual meetings. Thus, the Council approved the following proposals and forwarded them to the Board of Directors for adoption:

No. 03-6, which modifies the wording of Proposal No. 02-99 to specify that, in accordance with the new Division I legislative calendar, the "sunset" period for action on proposals consists of two, rather than four, legislative meetings.

No. 03-19-1, which delays the effective date of Proposal No. 03-19 regarding the student-athlete HIPAA/
Buckley amendment consent form from August 1, 2003, to August 4, 2004. (Effective date: August 1, 2003.) (The proposal is necessary because the pilot testing for the Web-based Injury Surveillance System will not contain any roster or individual information during the 2003-04 academic year.)

No. 03-20, which allows the Championships/Competition Cabinet to modify the guidelines pertaining to seeding, pairing and site selection for nonrevenue championships. (Effective date: August 1, 2003.)

No. 03-55, which permits participants in the NCAA's First-Team Mentoring Program to receive actual and necessary expenses to attend the program's annual educational conference and training seminar. (Effective date: Immediately.)

No. 03-56, which in basketball specifies that an institution in Alaska, Hawaii or Puerto Rico may participate in a certified event at its discretion, provided the institution does not exempt such participation more than twice in a four-year period. (Effective date: Immediately.)

No. 03-57, which moves the deadline for initial applications from agencies desiring to sponsor postseason bowl games from January 15 to April 1. (Effective date: Immediately.)

No. 03-58, which permits the NCAA (or a host institution or a third party acting in conjunction with the NCAA) to use a student-athlete's name or photograph in materials promoting NCAA championships or other NCAA events, activities or programs. (Effective date: Immediately.)

No. 02-53-B, which adjusts the dead period surrounding the Women's Final Four to Friday before the semifinals through midnight the Thursday after the championship game. (Effective date: Immediately.)

The Council voted to table Proposal No. 02-53-A, which would increase from two to three the number of women's basketball coaches allowed to recruit off-campus during the April contact period after the Division I Women's Basketball Championship game, to allow more time for examination and discussion.

Other highlights

Division I Management Council
July 21-22/Huntington Beach, California

Voted to accept former provisional members Lipscomb University and Birmingham-Southern University as active Division I members, effective September 1.

Noted a 6.4 percent inflationary adjustment approved by the Council's Administrative Committee to the minimum aggregate expenditure of financial aid for institutions to meet the Division I minimum financial aid membership requirements.

Heard a presentation from representatives of the Division I Committee on Athletics Certification regarding potential modifications to the athletics certification program that would reduce the number of operating principles, provide for more focused peer-review team visits and eliminate the interim reports, among other proposals.

Approved a Council governance subcommittee recommendation to develop an automatic "trigger" mechanism to facilitate governance representation when a change in conference composition results in a change in conference subdivisional classification. Currently, a conference's classification within the governance structure is set forth in the NCAA Manual, which means that legislation must be submitted to handle changes in conference representation.

Endorsed policy changes recommended by the Administrative Review Subcommittee that would require any institution applying for a waiver on behalf of a transferring student-athlete based on the alleged treatment at the institution the student-athlete is leaving be required to include a response by the accused institution as part of the waiver documentation.