The NCAA has selected eight men and women to participate in the NCAA Fellows Leadership Development Program.

The program was created with the specific goal of enhancing the employment and leadership opportunities for women and ethnic minorities at the senior management level of intercollegiate athletics administration. The 18-month program provides individuals with academic and practical work experiences that will enable them to develop their talents and abilities and mesh those skills with their career aspirations.

The program is designed to foster leadership within intercollegiate athletics and relate to the participants how athletics fits within the total academic experience.

NCAA Fellows remain at their current institutions, but are assigned an executive mentor, athletics director or conference commissioner from the NCAA membership who will help them gain insight into the administrative decision-making process at the highest levels of intercollegiate athletics.

The Fellows attended the NCAA Convention, and they also will attend Association-related meetings, retreats and workshops. Special training includes the areas of marketing, public relations, budgeting, booster relations, leadership training, compliance, fund-raising, diversity training and management training. Fellows also write position papers on athletics-related issues, participate in the preparation of policy manuals and research studies, and conduct briefing sessions with athletics staffs.

The Fellows program was developed by the NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee and the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics. The NCAA selected its first Fellows class in 1997.

The eight participants and their executive mentors for the 2005-06 NCAA Fellows Leadership Development Program are:

• M. Grace Calhoun, special assistant to the director, Dartmouth College (Division I); mentor: Dawn Rogers, athletics director, Xavier University.

• Kevin G. Clark, associate athletics director/financial business office manager, Indiana University, Bloomington (Division I); mentor: Gene Smith, executive director of athletics, Arizona State University.

• Camille Filardo, senior woman administrator/compliance coordinator, Sonoma State University (Division II); mentor: Mike Marcil, commissioner, Sunshine State Conference.

• Phillip D. Grayson, associate athletics director student-athlete welfare, Clemson University (Division I); mentor: Tim Curley, athletics director, Pennsylvania State University.

• Jill Marie La Point, associate athletics director/student services/senior woman administrator, Providence College (Division I); mentor: Judy Rose, athletics director, University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

• Tracey Ranieri, senior associate athletics director/women's soccer coach, State University College at Oneonta (Division III); mentor: Glada Munt, athletics director, Southwestern University.

• Etienne Thomas, director of compliance, San Jose State University (Division I); mentor: Christine Plonsky, director of women's athletics and men's/women's athletics external services, University of Texas at Austin.

• Tonia Walker, associate athletics director/senior woman administrator, Winston-Salem State University (Division II); mentor: Mary Gardner, athletics director, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.