Each NCAA membership division has worked hard over the past several years to figure out what it wants to look like over the next several years. Division I is polishing its recently brightened bar between I-A and I-AA. Division II strengthened membership requirements to manage imports from the NAIA and is now trying to manage an increasing number of exports to Division I. And Division III, fresh from perhaps its most historic NCAA Convention during which it met head-on a movement to subdivide, is still trying to clarify the balance its more than 400 institutions maintain between athletics and academics.

But while the NCAA siblings are paying a lot of attention to their own identities, there may need to be equal attention paid to how divisional decisions affect the NCAA family. The three-division model has served the Association well since its initiation in 1973, but the stability of those divisions, while ultimately a responsibility of the divisions themselves, may also need broader attention from time to time.

For example, at what point do discussions about Division III's future become Association-wide concerns? At what point, if at all, should the NCAA be concerned about the growing number of Division II institutions seeking Division I status? If one division is worried about its stability, should the Association guide the one to protect the three?

As division membership issues become more complex and in some cases more intense, those are the kinds of questions people ask. In August in fact, Division II members asked the Executive Committee whether an individual division's concerns -- if great enough -- should require Association-wide oversight.

Executive Committee Chair Carol Cartwright said such concerns have not been "systematically addressed," but that the Executive Committee would in fact be the appropriate body within the current structure for such review.

NCAA President Myles Brand said the Executive Committee certainly is an appropriate forum for such discussions to take place, even though that group may not have the full authority to approve or deny any division's membership criteria (that authority rests with each division's presidential body). He emphasized also that the national office leadership in the governance area is structured to ensure an Association-wide strategy when it comes to membership criteria. With division vice-presidents organized under Bernard Franklin, NCAA senior vice-president for governance and membership services, the structure, as Brand said, "enables the staff to discuss those issues in a way that might not have been as clear before."

"The key in major decisions, such as Division I-A criteria or the future of Division III," Brand said, "is early discussion before there is a vote on anything. While the Executive Committee has a role to play, early discussion also will take place under the direction of our governance staff leadership."

Case in point

Division II, for one, is urging "early" to be "now." The division has been shaken recently by the migration of several high-profile members to Division I. In the last 15 years, Division II has lost schools such as Troy University; California State University, Northridge; Elon University; the University of California, Riverside; Central Connecticut State University; Hampton University; Jacksonville State University; Norfolk State University; and Oakland University to Division I. More recently, the University of California, Davis; the University of Northern Colorado; and Longwood University announced plans to become Division I members in 2007-08. Right behind them are North Dakota State University and South Dakota State University, on track to reclassify by 2008-09.

Some of the remaining Division II members worry about compounding attrition. North Dakota State, South Dakota State and Northern Colorado, for example, were members of the North Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, whose remaining members are realizing pressure to consider the same path.

One of those feeling the heat is the University of North Dakota, which some consider a linchpin in keeping a Midwestern Division II core intact. A North Dakota departure could cause tremors, not only for the NCIAC, but perhaps for neighboring leagues such as the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association that rely on NCIAC schools and others as quality close-by competitors.

The pressure isn't lost on North Dakota President Charles Kupchella. "There are alumni and others who say they've been watching the deterioration of Division II over the years, and pretty soon you don't have the caliber of teams you'd like to play in the division," said Kupchella, who has thus far resisted reclassifying but noted that circumstances continue to test the institution's resolve.

In the last six years -- the span of Kupchella's tenure as CEO -- North Dakota has played in six NCAA championship finals and won three. When North Dakota won the Division II Football Championship in 2001, it boasted 12 of the NCIAC's 28 academic honorees, and North Dakota student-athletes have averaged better than 3.000 grade-point averages in 12 of the past 13 semesters.

"So it doesn't get any better in terms of what intercollegiate athletics is meant to be, yet we have this thing about why we're not Division I," Kupchella said.

He noted, too, that if North Dakota already were Division I, it would rank among the top 30 in Division I-AA football attendance and the top 40 in women's basketball. The school's nationally competitive ice hockey team's games also are sold out for the next five years. "There's no reason to go Division I-AA other than the status of being Division I," he emphasized. "But I see paradoxes. The year we won the football title, ESPN reported the viewers of that game doubled those who watched the I-AA final. Then you hear people say we ought to move to Division I-AA to get more visibility."

Kupchella has fought to retain the athletics/academics balance he believes is inherent in Division II, but as he said, "in this region of the country, there aren't a lot of (affiliation) options."

"We believe here that intercollegiate athletics should not be seen as extracurricular, but as co-curricular," he said. "We tell our athletics department to take the goals we say we have for all our students and tell us how they help address which ones as an athletics program. We believe what they do actually does help the kids we bring here acquire skills and aptitude that we hope all our graduates will obtain. We see athletics as integral to our curriculum, but that could be threatened (with a move to Division I)."

Not always by choice

Kupchella said the cost estimates of a Division I reclassification run high. Not only would Division I membership criteria require a larger investment in scholarship commitments, but becoming a member of the nearest Division I conferences -- the Mid-American or Big Sky -- also would drive travel costs beyond Kupchella's comfort zone.

"It's not a pretty picture," he said. "I don't think we could all of the sudden shift $3 or $4 million into athletics, so we'd probably either cut sports or play as poor competitors in some.

"I remember coming here as president and some of my mentors said, 'You know, it's going to be one of two things that will get you -- either athletics or the medical school.' Well, athletics has been just a joy here. The first year here I was able to go to the White House with the hockey team. It's been a great experience, and I hate to see that lost or threatened by something that seems to be far too driven by money."

North Dakota is a good example of an institution that is happy with its division affiliation but may have change thrust upon it by circumstances not under its control. UC Davis faced a similar domino effect that contributed to its decision to reclassify. School President Larry Vanderhoef said as the Division II population in his region dwindled, UC Davis -- with an enrollment of about 25,000 -- was left looking less and less like the institutions that remained.

Like his peer at North Dakota, Vanderhoef felt an academic-mission kinship with Division II, but as he said, "there came a day when we just seemed to be too big a fish in too small a pond."

Vanderhoef said there indeed were critics who claimed that perhaps UC Davis was a status-chaser. But Vanderhoef noted that the school resisted the thought of reclassifying as long as it could, and then once the decision was made, officials fought to protect the school's academic success from the foibles that come with the Division I territory. Ironically, the scandals involving academic fraud and recruiting behavior that have dominated the headlines the past two years broke just when UC Davis was planning its move.

"Faculty became very concerned that we were entering (the Division I) world," Vanderhoef said. "We've had a clean program for decades and people were worried that if we made this change then somehow we would lose our academic focus."

But UC Davis officials installed a plan to avoid the problem. Vanderhoef said the school made it clear that it would not soften its admissions policies and that it would punish coaches who let graduation rates slide.

As North Dakota's Kupchella pointed out, Division II institutions expecting to maintain their academic commitment at the next level may experience a drop in the athletics success they're accustomed to, but that was OK with Vanderhoef.

"I knew that if we continued to take only the very best students -- which means that we wouldn't be selecting simply for the very best athletes -- that in turn we probably wouldn't be going to the Rose Bowl," he said. "I'm absolutely comfortable with that. I'm right there in front of the TV when March Madness is going on, but I've never envied those universities, presidents or coaches. It's the kind of pressure that puts all of the emphasis on athletics and just not enough on what universities are all about."

Looking out for each other

Division II members certainly empathize with the predicaments schools such as North Dakota and UC Davis find or found themselves in. But they also worry that some schools do in fact reclassify for reasons that might jeopardize the institution's academic mission, or that cause too many financial resources to be pumped into some sports in lieu of others, thus jeopardizing the student-athlete experience.

No one denies the pressures Division II CEOs face to "move up." It is generally accepted that alumni, trustees and the communities that surround institutions want their schools to be seen as playing with the "elite" both in athletics and academics. But at no time is the athletics elite more evident than on fall Saturdays or in March, and some wonder whether presidents are blinded by the TV brightness that may in fact obscure the bigger picture. In other words, presidents shouldn't equate being on TV with an enhancement in reputation without truly thinking of the distinct mission of the institution or the long-term costs associated with such a move.

Division II Presidents Council Chair George Hagerty also points out that some institutions that do choose to reclassify, even after thoughtful consideration, may not realize that it could take years of experience and resources to ever become competitive at the next level.

Hagerty said his school, Franklin Pierce College, has been asked to consider a one-sport jump to Division I, as well as to think about moving the entire athletics program to Division III. "But we remain Division II," he said, "because the way we administer our college is wholly consistent with the universe of Division II institutions."

"We try to strike a balance for our student-athletes so that they clearly recognize that intercollegiate athletics is only one component of their overall development, and that their undergraduate preparation for a profession is the most central component of their development during their undergraduate years," Hagerty said. "That's not to say that there aren't Division I schools that do that, but it is why we belong to Division II."

Some Division II members also wonder whether Division I criteria actually contribute to the attrition. Some cite the recent reduction from eight years to five in the waiting period for reclassifying institutions to compete in Division I championships as bait for institutions poised to be hooked by Division I status. It's just such an issue that leads to the question of whether membership criteria are in fact an Association-wide matter.

Because governance is so federated, it can be a challenge for the three divisions to coordinate a strategic approach, but most in the structure believe that each division must have the other two in mind when deliberating major decisions. As Hagerty said, "The Association itself needs to ensure that the philosophy behind Division II is protected."

There doesn't seem to be much consensus on how best to accomplish that broader oversight, however. No one disputes the need for strong Association-wide leadership when it comes to membership criteria, but neither does anyone dispute that it is each institution's decision -- not the Association's -- to align with the division that best suits its mission. The same answer held true two years ago when some Big East Conference schools made their highly publicized move to the Atlantic Coast Conference. Some in the media thought the NCAA should get involved, but in the end, conference and division alignment is an institutional decision.

"Trying to manage movement is a tough issue because it's a free country," said Robert Hemenway, chancellor at the University of Kansas and chair of the Division I Board of Directors. "Institutions should have the ability to make their own decisions about their own destiny. Each division has to decide what's best for its membership and each institution within the division has to decide what's best for itself."

Hemenway emphasized the latter point. When institutions decide what's best for themselves, they need to do so in the context of the institutional mission and not because they see a certain division as offering a boost to the school's reputation. In other words, institutions should not be jaded by chasing a Division I brand that has been generated only because of television. At the same time, Hemenway said the NCAA can't prevent that brand from being generated and in turn can't prevent schools from chasing it.

"There are limits as to the power of the NCAA to remedy issues of status that occur when institutions are characterized by third parties," he said.

He did, however, admit that current movement seems to be disproportionately toward Division I-A from Division I-AA and Division II and not vice versa.

"There always seems to be a status push to rise to another level," Hemenway observed. "That cliché in and of itself is manifested in some of the division issues. How often have you heard people say they've hired a new coach or president and he or she is going to take them to another level? It's almost as if we have a template built into our heads that the next level is always better than the level we're on."

Hemenway said the three-division structure is something NCAA members are comfortable with in part because that's the structure they've known for 30 years. The question, he said, may be whether intercollegiate athletics has changed to such a degree that the three-division format doesn't serve the membership as well as it has in the past.

"There seems to be more and more blurring of the lines between classifications," he said.

Still, he said, the only concern Division I should have about the movement at this point is if institutions become over-extended by their desire or the desire of university supporters to be in a classification that in the end does not align with the university mission. Again, though, Hemenway said it's up to the individual institution and not the NCAA to recognize the condition and act accordingly.

NCAA President Brand agreed with the notion of institutional autonomy, but he also sees the divisional leadership having a greater responsibility to keep the big picture in focus.

In particular, he said, Divisions I and II -- because the line between them is much less distinctive than it is between Divisions II and III -- need to pay close attention to how their individual decisions affect not only the other division, but the greater Association.

"Both Divisions I and II need to be aware of what the other division is strategically planning," he said. "And while they each have to make their own decisions, I would recommend conversations amongst the leadership in both divisions so they can make coordinated decisions."

"Nothing is in a vacuum," Executive Committee Chair Cartwright emphasized. "Regardless of the division we represent because of our current institutional affiliation, we all come in to the organization as citizens of the higher education enterprise committed to doing what's best for student-athletes. That should be a prevailing principle as we think about how we might have these discussions."

Those discussions may have to occur if the three-division model, which has been a structural fixture for more than three decades, continues to be the best house for the NCAA family.