The next time you are in room with several of your student-athletes, try a little experiment. Ask them if they can name your institution's faculty athletics representative. If you're lucky, and your FAR is very active, a few might be able to name that person. Several might not be able to name the FAR but, they might say (as they may refer to me), "Oh, it's that chunky bald guy."

Sadly, I suspect that the majority of student-athletes at any Division III school would not be able to identify the FAR. What this says about the involvement of the FAR as a key figure in intercollegiate athletics at Division III institutions is worrisome. As the division struggles to define itself, to establish what we really are, it seems apparent that at far too many institutions the forgotten figure in this debate is the FAR.

Expansion of championship brackets, combined with the defeat of modest restrictions on the playing and practice seasons, has given some pause to wonder where we are headed as a division. Many are concerned that we are becoming just a smaller version of Division I without all of the perks.

The statement of the financial aid audit

Personally, the issue that I found most discomforting at the recent NCAA Convention was the financial aid audit process that is being developed. This addresses most profoundly the very essence of Division III -- that our student-athletes are in fact students first and that our institutions attract them based on the educational and competitive appeal of the institution. Further, the financial support of a student-athlete is blind to that student's athletics talents.

The financial aid audit process is an acknowledgement, or at best the acknowledgement of a suspicion, that our competitors cannot be trusted to adhere to this most basic of assumptions about Division III athletics. And that, sadly, is where we truly begin to look like Division I. Is the goal of a national championship the only aspiration that matters now? And is pursuit of that goal so important that our colleagues and competitors would chip away at the bedrock principle on which Division III is built? Or is there more to what Division III stands for?

Division III, somewhat pretentiously, likes to describe its members as the conscience of the NCAA. But who serves as the conscience of Division III?

The FARs, with their primary emphasis on the academic integrity of the athletics program and the welfare of the student-athlete, provide the focus needed to fill that role on our campuses.

The NCAA recognizes the importance of the FAR on campuses by providing grants to increase educational opportunities for FARs, subsidizing travel to the Faculty Athletics Representatives Association Fall Forum and to the NCAA Convention. Still, the number of FARs who are active participants in intercollegiate athletics issues, as evidenced by attendance at the Forum and the Convention, is quite limited.

While it is certainly true that active, engaged faculty reps can be effective advocates on their campus without attending those meetings, the national meetings are an important opportunity to learn more about the direction of the debate on the future of Division III and the role of the FAR in that debate.

The causes for this lack of participation are manifold, as reported by Carol Barr in her survey of the membership in 1999. At the time of the survey, the primary reasons for lack of participation were the time demands of attendance and a lack of funding. My suspicion is that not too much has changed. But as we look to the future, and the division attempts to define itself, we must be mindful of the role that the FAR has to play in these discussions.

The recently published report, "The Faculty Role in the Reform of Intercollegiate Athletics" (Academe, January-February 2003), the NCAA's support of FARA and the most recent report of the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics all describe the central role that the faculty and faculty athletics representatives have to play in the governance of intercollegiate athletics.

For that to happen, institutional CEOs must encourage and support FARs in their active engagement in the NCAA.

The presidents have asserted themselves more aggressively in their involvement with the direction of intercollegiate athletics. FARs must be given the support to do the same.

This is particularly true at this critical junction for Division III.

Michael Miranda is the faculty athletics representative at Plattsburgh State University of New York.