The Committee on Academic Performance (CAP) forwarded several legislative proposal requests to the Division I Board of Directors after meeting in Indianapolis October 24-26.

Included was a proposal to permit an institution to appeal the "public warning" penalty, the first step in the historically based penalty structure. Allowing an appeal of the public warning will permit schools to present legitimate, extenuating, nonacademic factors that caused the penalty. The committee could then decide whether to grant relief to an institution under those circumstances.

The CAP also recommended that the Board sponsor legislation that would allow playing-and-practice-season restrictions in the event that a team enters the second phase of the historically based penalty process. The committee focused its discussion on reductions in practice opportunities because members believe that practice time is valuable and important to coaches. That type of penalty also would affect all institutions, regardless of whether athletics scholarships are awarded. The practice restrictions also would encourage replacing practice time with academically related activities. However, specific penalties and policies would be determined by CAP and approved by the Board.

CAP members also recommended that the Board sponsor another proposal to require transferring student-athletes to remain academically eligible at their original institution to receive athletics aid at another school. Currently, academcally ineligible student-athletes can transfer and receive aid at the new institution. Committee members indicated the proposal would encourage academic achievement among student-athletes who are considering transferring to a different institution.

CAP opposes graduate proposal

In other business, the CAP examined a draft of the potential appeals process for institutions subject to historically based penalties under the Academic Performance Program (APP). The document outlines the procedures to be followed in the appeals process. The entire system is electronic. The committee intends to refine the draft procedures and circulate them to the membership for comment before forwarding a final version for approval. Members hope to review the comments before drafting a final policy at the group's next meeting in January.

The committee also voted to oppose legislation that would exclude from the Academic Progress Rate (APR) cohort student-athletes who have graduated but have athletics eligibility remaining. While on its face the proposal seems to provide relief for institutions whose students have graduated, committee members believe that student-athletes should be held to a minimum standard that includes attending class while participating in athletics.

Members discussed the potential abuses of excluding graduates from the cohort. For example, a basketball player who graduates in December but wants to continue with his or her season the following semester and has eligibility remaining could enroll in the minimum number of classes in the spring and never attend. Likewise, a football player with eligibility remaining after graduating in May could enroll in a few classes for the fall semester and also not attend those classes.

Committee members believed that if students are participating in athletics and are receiving financial aid, they should be attending class. CAP Chair Walter Harrison agreed that participating in athletics should not be the only reason a student is on campus.

"The goal is that those who participate in our games are genuinely students," said Harrison, president of the University of Hartford.

Discussion on incentives

CAP also constructed an initial draft of a basic framework for rewarding schools that perform well under the APP and providing incentives for other institutions that show marked improvement.

The framework, accompanied by a $10 million budget request, outlines programs for recognizing absolute performance and academic improvement as well as a separate, need-based program and academic partnerships designed to support cultural change.

As part of the absolute performance portion, funds would be split between a public-recognition program for teams that perform at the highest levels and monetary awards for the institutions that sponsor high-performing teams.

The improvement portion also would be team-based. The need-based portion of the program would be split between academic-improvement grants and developing academic-support partnerships designed to facilitate cultural change and assist with APP implementation at the campus level. Each piece of the package will target a balanced distribution among different types of Division I institutions.

In discussing the framework, members noted that the goal of the rewards and incentives program was to change behavior, and weighting the budget request heavily in the favor of institutions that field teams that improve their APR would be the most logical way to motivate those changed behaviors.

NCAA President Myles Brand told the group he believes the improvement portion is essential, and that improvement must be measured within teams, not institutions.

"We're going to sanction squads for not meeting minimum levels of academic achievement; we must implement incentives the same way. The unit of analysis is the squad," Brand said. "Reward success, but it is behavior change that we're after the most. That means the improvement piece is critical."

Putting specific parameters on the method of rewarding improvement was impossible at this point, committee members noted, because only one year of APR data currently is available.

The group also discussed the public-recognition program, which would not distribute funds to high-performing squads but would recognize them in some public fashion. First-year data indicate that in recognizing the top 10 percent (plus ties at the 1000 APR level) within each sport, a high percentage -- more than 20 percent -- of squads may qualify as outstanding performers because of the number of teams in some sports that attain a perfect APR. However, committee members felt that recognizing a high number of achievers was not detrimental to the program, and noted that when four years of APR data are accumulated, the percentage will decrease.

However, members also considered that in financially rewarding teams for academic achievement, the plan may need to take a more stratified approach by rewarding a certain percentage of high-achieving teams at institutions across all three subdivisions. Members also felt that the rewards should be significant enough to be an actual incentive to perform academically.

Committee member Britton Banowsky, commissioner of Conference USA, said the funding should be spread out enough to make sure that a variety of institutions can benefit from the funding -- not just the traditionally academically excellent institutions.

"What's important for publicly recognizing institutions is having enough money to make it meaningful," Banowsky said. "And the distribution needs to be wide enough for schools to feel like there's an opportunity to benefit."

Members also felt that recognizing high performers will give the APP program credibility.

CAP members benefited from feedback they received from the Board's October 27 meeting (see story, page 6), and they will begin to discuss the details of the rewards and incentives program after the second-year APR data becomes available early next year.

CAP next meets in conjunction with the 2006 NCAA Convention in January.

Other highlights

Division I Committee on Academic Performance
October 24-26/Indianapolis

• Supported an Ivy Group-recommended adjustment to the APR that would apply to student-athletes who leave an institution to train for the Olympics.

• Asked the Division I Board of Directors to sponsor legislation requiring institutions to distribute their Academic Performance Program (APP) reports to prospective student-athletes, and that those reports include both Academic Progress Rate and Graduation/Success Rate data. CAP members believe the requirement would provide potential student-athletes with a more complete picture of an institution's academic performance.

• Noted support for the Division I Degree-Completion Scholarship program, which is seeking its first funding increase since the program's inception in 1989. Members also requested more information about funding provided to all NCAA academic programs that could have similar goals to the APP.