Welcome to Presidents' Forum, an initiative developed to give college and university presidents and chancellors an opportunity to present their views on important intercollegiate athletics issues. Presidents' Forum will appear in The NCAA News on a quarterly basis, and it will encourage input from CEOs in all three divisions, and from presidents both inside and
outside the current governance structure.

For the NCAA to accomplish its goals, it must work in tandem with many internal and external constituents. No partnership is of greater importance than that with college and university CEOs. They are the decision-makers on college campuses, and the NCAA has charged them with taking control of intercollegiate athletics. Thus, it is appropriate that college and university presidents and chancellors have this opportunity to express their perspectives publicly.

The topic for our first Presidents' Forum is the relationship between CEOs and boards of trustees when it comes to athletics issues. This is an important matter. While NCAA rules clearly designate presidents as the authority over intercollegiate athletics, presidents are held accountable by boards of trustees or regents as their employers. This relationship can be strained when contentious decisions regarding athletics, such as the hiring or firing of high-profile athletics personnel, are made.

The goal, obviously, is for boards to be involved in athletics policy matters without intruding or even usurping the CEO's operational authority. The president needs to be in charge of what happens on campus. In my experience at the University of Oregon and Indiana University, Bloomington, I did not have intrusive boards. In fact, I've been fortunate to always have had the support of boards with respect to athletics -- even in some difficult times -- during my tenure as a university president.

But each campus is different. While most CEOs and boards have established appropriate working relationships in athletics matters, the unfortunate but true flip side is that some board members have more interest in athletics than in the academic mission of the institution.

The importance of this relationship led the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges to issue a document in March that outlines what the relationship between presidents and boards should be with respect to athletics. It is clear about the expected role of the board, and the AGB does a nice job of articulating good principles in the document.

I encourage a thorough review of the AGB document, which can be found at www.agb.
org, and thoughtful discussion of the relationships between presidents and boards. Since the consequences of doing a bad job in this area are stark, we should take the necessary time to make sure we are doing it right. In the end, presidents and boards must work together on their campuses to make sure that intercollegiate athletics is indeed an integral part of the educational mission.

Myles Brand is president of the NCAA.