The Division I Regulatory Culture Working Group conducted its second in-person meeting March 3 in Indianapolis and began formulating recommendations that may help Division I members feel more engaged with the legislative process.

The working group, established last fall to study the "regulatory culture" inherent in the Division I governance structure, focused on legislative matters and athletics certification at this particular meeting. Other topics the group will address in future meetings include the general culture, interpretations, enforcement, student-athlete reinstatement and additional work in the legislative area. The purpose of the group is to encourage the Division I membership to "assume greater ownership and empowerment in the adoption, interpretation, application and enforcement of NCAA legislation."

The group's work is divided into two phases, the first of which is to agree on a "snapshot" of the current regulatory climate in Division I, and the second of which is to recommend solutions to identified concerns. As members work their way through the process, they are finding phase one to be much easier than phase two.

Several consensus statements emerged about the legislative process, primarily that Division I is over-regulated. But members are less certain about how to reduce the amount of regulation. Ideas ranged from requiring legislative sponsors to verify the national significance of a proposal to some sort of "legislative cap" or even a moratorium on legislation not sponsored specifically by the Board of Directors.

Proponents of the latter see the out-of-the-box idea as an opportunity for the Board to plan strategically, much like it has done with the academic reform package currently progressing through the structure. The Board and its Task Force already have indicated a desire to drive strategic issues down through the structure and have proposals that accomplish the strategy bubble back up. Some think a Board-only legislative slate, at least for a one- or two-year period, might make sense in that regard. Another benefit of such a pause in the legislative flow would be an opportunity to review deregulation efforts in earnest rather than have them be part of the 120-plus proposal load the Management Council has to consider annually.

But many in the regulatory culture working group worry that there are too many non-presidential driven issues that need immediate attention to go "cold turkey" for a period of time. They also believe the idea of a Board-only atmosphere would further disenfranchise a Division I membership already feeling left out of the legislative loop.

Though the working group did not reach consensus on that type of bigger legislative picture, members did reach a greater comfort level with the idea of beefing up rationale statements included with proposals in order to make sponsors prove, as it were, the national importance of new legislation. In addition to the need for proposals to state the impact on budget and student-athlete time demands (as required by the Board), working group members recommended adding academic impact, deregulatory impact and a clear explanation of why the proposal is necessary (something stronger than "Member institutions should be able to...")

The sense of the group is that a more structured rationale statement not only would give sponsors pause before submitting a proposal (and thus reduce the number of overall proposals), it also would give the Division I cabinets clearer parameters by which to decide whether a proposal is nationally significant.

Sense of disenfranchisement

Another notion regarding the legislative process that working group members seemed to agree on is that many Division I constituents feel they do not have a voice -- or if they do, it isn't often heeded -- and that the multiple opportunities to review and adopt legislation make it difficult to track legislative outcomes. Working group members realized, however, that those concerns may be alleviated by the single legislative cycle the Management Council approved in January.

The new cycle reduces the number of "legislative meetings" for the Management Council and Board of Directors to one (April) and makes the NCAA Convention an integral part of the comment period for legislative proposals. The Management Council's governance subcommittee, which has been the point group for developing the alternative cycle, has kept April the focal point for final decisions because of current meeting schedules for the cabinets, Council and Board that are locked in for the next couple of years. However, the working group thought there was nothing magical about April if the meeting slate were to be wiped clean, and it urged the governance subcommittee to consider other models that might align legislation approval more with institutional budget cycles.

Regardless of the timeline, though, the working group acknowledged that the confusion about where legislation stands likely would diminish once the single cycle has a chance to take hold, simply because legislation will be easier to track. Some working group members even proposed a change in the way legislation is "approved." Currently, the Management Council gives initial approval to proposals before they are sent out for comment and return for final approval, but the working group said some people interpret the initial approval as final, and that just sending proposals out for comment without an approval tag might solve that problem.

Where the Convention fits into the new cycle is an item for debate, not only for the regulatory culture working group but for others in the Division I governance structure as well. Though the Board of Directors has indicated it does not favor a membership-voting Convention, many people believe the relevance of the Convention from a Division I perspective cannot be revived without the voting lure.

Working group members believe the opportunity for Division I delegates to cast at least a straw vote would boost Convention attendance, give Division I members more ownership in the process and provide the Management Council more guidance in legislative decisions. Other members, however, believe that unless the vote is more binding, Division I Convention attendance will continue to wane. "The only way to attract members without a vote might be to have the Convention in either San Diego or Orlando in January," one member said. "No other dynamic short of a meaningful vote will affect attendance patterns."

The other area regarding legislation that generated working group discussion was the role and composition of the Board of Directors. Some working group members believe that if the Board does not want institutional voting at the Convention, and if it wants to continue to be thought of as a representative group, then it should be expanded to provide representation from all Division I conferences. The Board, however, has defeated two recent proposals that would have modified its composition.

Some working group members believe the representation concern could be addressed in ways other than having more seats on the Board. For example, if one of the Board's four annual meetings were held in conjunction with an American Council on Education meeting where presidential attendance is high, more presidents would have access to the Board regarding intercollegiate athletics concerns.

Though the working group did not solidify as many consensus statements about the legislative process as it had hoped at the Indianapolis meeting, it will have another chance during a conference call in April and at its next in-person meeting in early summer. The group will provide that feedback to the Management Council's governance subcommittee as that group works to resolve legislative calendar issues.

Athletics certification

The regulatory culture working group reached more of a consensus regarding athletics certification. As was the case with the working group's review of legislative issues, addressing certification was timely since a team of Committee on Athletics Certification and Management Council members already is conducting an evaluation of the certification process to ensure its efficiency and effectiveness.

That initiative dovetails nicely with the working group's consensus statement that athletics certification should be reviewed to discern whether it is achieving the intended outcome. A primary concern from working group members is that the amount of time and energy institutions spend on certification may outweigh the benefits realized. Specifically, most members think the initial cycle of certification helped many institutions fortify their athletics programs operationally, but that the scope of certification has grown in recent years to the point where it has become cumbersome and in some cases, duplicative of other efforts. One member said, "The process has grown so much that it has become its own worst enemy."

Some of the preliminary recommendations coming from the working group were to narrow the focus of certification (perhaps even using outside consultants to handle the operating principles regarding gender and ethnic minority equity); work with regional accrediting groups to write an athletics component into the accreditation process (to avoid duplication of time demands on faculty and staff); and to increase the involvement of NCAA staff in order to make the peer review process more objective.

Those recommendations will be forwarded to the certification review team, which already has developed and/or implemented some improvements, including a more streamlined process overall, a Web-based self-study process and a more efficient orientation visit.