NCAA News Archive - 2004

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Management Council survey launches data-gathering phase


Aug 16, 2004 2:56:19 PM

By Jack Copeland
The NCAA News

BALTIMORE -- Asking questions and seeking results will be the major task of the Division III Management Council and various committees for the foreseeable future, judging from Council actions at its July 19-20 meeting.

The Council became the first Division III group to review a draft of a survey that will ask the membership for guidance in responding to a 2004 Convention resolution, and it also forwarded to the Division III Presidents Council a revamped division strategic plan that proposes specific results for measuring that plan's success.

The membership survey, which will be conducted during September, will be the first major effort in the "Future of Division III -- Phase II" initiative. The effort is in response to 2004 Convention Proposal No. 66, which directed a study of membership growth and diversity.

Proposal No. 66 also lists enhancement of institutional and conference autonomy, sport and program equity, and access to championships and other programs and services among areas for review, which prompted Division III governance groups to seek membership input in determining an agenda that reflects the division's priorities.

As a result, the Council reviewed a survey designed to solicit feedback from the membership by asking questions in six subject areas: management of growth; access to championships and other postseason opportunities; sport and program equity; sports sponsorship and broad-based programs; conference affiliation; academic success of student-athletes; and cultural and campus integration.

Responses to those questions are expected to provide a clearer reading about which of those issues are most important to the membership, and point the way toward a more in-depth discussion of those issues.

Data gathering

"For the next year, the Council is experiencing a shift that will result in an expansion of its role as a data-gathering body," said Management Council Chair Suzanne Coffey, director of athletics at Bates College. "We want to be able to more accurately reflect who we are as a diverse Division III and ascertain how the Division III philosophy can better serve as our common ground."

In an effort to ensure they are asking the right questions to achieve those goals, Council members also discussed initial comments by participants in recently created "virtual focus groups." Each of the e-mail discussion groups is headed by a Management Council member and includes selected individuals from each conference, as well as independent institutions.

The groups' discussions generated wide-ranging opinions that generally confirmed membership interest in most of the subjects listed in Proposal No. 66, and also suggested at least one emerging area of concern that was not specifically included in the resolution -- sportsmanship and fan behavior.

The Management Council also discussed another thread that occasionally arose in the virtual discussions -- suspicions about motives of the Phase II initiative. Some Council representatives relayed concerns expressed in their focus groups about whether the membership feedback survey and other Phase II activities are intended to set the stage for specific proposed legislation.

Council representatives who recently have attended meetings of Division III groups to discuss the initiative's objectives have said that no legislation currently is being considered, and Council members agreed in Baltimore that it is important to continue emphasizing that fact.

As one member put it, the Council wants Division III members to feel they can express an opinion through the membership survey, in the virtual focus groups or in other forums, without fearing it will be "fast-tracked" into justification for proposed legislation.

Plans call for discussion of the membership survey at the 2005 Convention in Dallas.

The Council also discussed ways to ensure that a wide range of constituencies are given an opportunity to participate in the survey.

Each institution will receive the survey, and chief executive officers are being asked to coordinate an institutional response. The CEOs will be encouraged to meet with and solicit views from athletics administrators, coaches, student-athletes and other interested groups in deciding how to answer the survey's questions.

The Council decided it also will communicate with those various groups to ensure they are informed about the survey and its subject areas, and to encourage them to seek opportunities to discuss the survey with CEOs before the September 30 deadline.

Strategic plan

Consistent with pondering future courses of action, the Management Council reviewed the Division III strategic plan and forwarded it to the Presidents Council.

The plan continues to emphasize most of the initiatives that have been components since its creation in 1998. However, the plan now looks a bit different, after work by the Division III Strategic Planning Subcommittee of the Management and Presidents Councils to integrate its objectives into the new Association-wide strategic plan.

The plan now is organized around five "outcome-oriented" Association-wide goals:

  • Student-athletes will be better educated and prepared for increased and life-long achievement and success:

  • Student-athletes will be enriched by a collegiate athletics experience based on fair and reasonable standards and a commitment to sportsmanship.

  • Member institutions and conferences will have access to data, research and best practices that assist governance and management of intercollegiate athletics.

  • The national office will be operated in an accountable, efficient manner.

  • The public will gain a greater understanding of and confidence in the integrity of intercollegiate athletics and will more readily support its values.

    The Division III plan identifies how each of those goals relates to the current Division III philosophy, links Division III strategic objectives to the Association-wide plan's objectives, and identifies relevant Division III programs and initiatives and the committees or other entities responsible for oversight and implementation.

    Another new feature of the plan is its identification of the outcomes or results that will be used to measure success in meeting the plan's goals.

    Those outcomes will be measured in a variety of ways, ranging from percentages of institutions or individuals participating in programs to the level of satisfaction expressed by the membership.

    "This is not something that just goes on a shelf somewhere; it's an organic, living document that will guide our efforts," said Management Council Vice-Chair Michael Miranda, faculty athletics representative at Plattsburgh State University of New York and chair of the subcommittee.

    After review and approval by the Presidents Council, details of the plan will be posted on the Division III Web site and also will be distributed to the membership in a future issue of the Division III Newsletter.

    Championships

    The Council also received and approved a recommendation from the Division III Championships Committee designed to maintain a viable championships program if a "catastrophic" event such as cancellation of the Division I Men's Basketball Championship occurs.

    The financial contingency plan was developed in response to a request from the Presidents Council, which also will review the recommendation during its August 5 meeting in Indianapolis.

    The plan calls for paying first for game expenses incurred by host institutions and for per diem for participating institutions, in the event of a catastrophic loss of revenue during 2004-05.

    The Championships Committee agreed during its July meeting that Division III should be able to accommodate game expenses and per diem within a reduced budget, after reviewing budget projections for those items as well as projected transportation expenses.

    The committee plans to review the funding priorities on an annual basis as financial information is updated, including information about the impact of implementation of the 1:6.5 access ratio and resulting expansion of championships brackets beginning in fall 2005.

    Other highlights

    Division III Management Council
    July 19-20/Baltimore

  • Approved recommendations from the Management Council's playing and practice seasons subcommittee to join with the Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports to begin to collect injury and illness data during the 2004 preseason in selected fall sports in Division III. Institutions also will be surveyed regarding time devoted to and the intensity of athletics activities during the preseason in all fall sports. The recommendations resulted from the subcommittee's review of last year's implementation of the football preseason acclimatization model and preliminary discussion of adoption of a model for other fall sports. The subcommittee is seeking more extensive data collected specifically from Division III institutions about a range of injuries and illnesses related to preseason activity (including but not limited to heat illness) and baseline data to describe athletics activities to analyze the impact of those factors on student-athletes' recovery ability during the fall preseason. The Council also approved a recommendation to distribute an educational packet to Division III institutions regarding acclimatization, hydration, recovery and emergency care procedures for use in the 2004 football preseason period.

  • Approved legislation to reclassify various specified improper benefits and de minimis violations as Level II secondary violations under the new infractions reporting process that will be implemented this year; also, recommended to the Division III Presidents Council that institutions reporting no Level II violations at the end of an academic year be required to certify that no violations occurred.

  • Granted active membership to Alverno College and Transylvania University; also, granted active membership to Huntingdon College after it repeated its fourth year of provisional membership, but expressed concern about the circumstances of the institution's compliance with Division III sport-sponsorship requirements during that year (specifically, the institution added and sponsored men's cross country for only one year after it was unable to meet scheduling requirements in football). The Council granted active membership with the condition that the institution's chief executive officer and director of athletics participate in an educational program during the first year of membership, and it also directed the Division III Membership Committee to recommend ways of addressing similar situations in the future.

  • Approved a modification of wording of 2004 Convention Proposal No. 59 based on intent, to specify that an institution that receives a student-athlete's "self-release" may not inform that student-athlete's institution about receipt of the form, even after expiration of a previously adopted 30-day privacy period, until the student-athlete decides to transfer or provides a second self-release form to that institution. The modification also specifies that if the student-athlete decides to transfer at any time during or after the 30-day period to an institution, or issues a second self-release to that institution, it must notify the student-athlete's current institution within seven days of the action. The Council approved the modification based on the proposal's intent to provide confidentiality to student-athletes considering a transfer, and maintained the 30-day privacy period to ensure that a student-athlete will have at least that long to make a decision.

  • Approved an official interpretation permitting institutions to schedule 10 days of practice to prepare for a foreign tour during a 20-day period ending with departure for the tour.

  • Approved a recommendation that institutions holding dual membership in the NCAA and other intercollegiate athletics associations (including but not limited to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) be permitted to choose to participate in an association championship that ends later than an NCAA championship in the same sport, provided that the institution complies with all other Division III playing and practice season limitations.

  • Defeated a proposal that originated in the Division I membership to add a designated position on the Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports for a certified strength and conditioning professional.

  • Discussed data from the NCAA National Study on Collegiate Sports Wagering and Associated Health Risks with Bill Saum, NCAA director of agents, gambling and amateurism, and Todd Petr, NCAA managing director of research, noting that Division III student-athletes were more likely to engage in some kinds of gambling activities than other student-athletes, and that a need exists to provide education about gambling tailored to the experiences of Division III student-athletes.

  • Approved the schedule for the 2005 Convention, noting that NCAA President Myles Brand will host a breakfast for chief executive officers from all three divisions Sunday, January 9, featuring a guest speaker on the role of trustees in intercollegiate athletics. Therefore, the Division III legislative issues forum will be scheduled slightly later that morning to reduce overlap with the breakfast. The Council also noted that the provisional member CEO education session will be moved from Saturday to Sunday to eliminate a conflict with the Convention's opening business session. Otherwise, Division III generally will use the same Convention format as in 2004, including the Sunday-morning forum followed on Monday, January 10, with voting on proposed legislation.

  • Participated in its annual joint meeting with the Division III Student-Athlete Advisory Committee July 18. Management Council and SAAC members exchanged views during a series of round-table discussions on the topics of academic performance, cultural integration, sportsmanship and conference autonomy.

  • Elected Michael Miranda, faculty athletics representative at Plattsburgh State University of New York, as Management Council chair for next year, succeeding Suzanne Coffey of Bates College. The Council also elected Sandra Slabik, faculty athletics director of Neumann College, to succeed Miranda as vice-chair.


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