The Division III Management Council has compiled ideas from various sources -- ranging from delegates who participated in a forum at the 2005 Convention to recent recommendations from the Division III Championships and Membership Committees -- for further discussion in the ongoing Future of Division III -- Phase II initiative.

The Council, meeting April 11-12 in Indianapolis, took no specific position on any of the ideas but forwarded the compiled list to the Future of Division III -- Phase II Oversight Group for discussion during its April 27 meeting in Indianapolis.

Included in the list are ideas forwarded by the Championships and Membership Committees after a review of membership comments at the Convention forum, as well as responses to a membership survey conducted late last year and responses from about 60 members of the division's Virtual Focus Groups.

The championships ideas, as listed by the Championships Committee, include:

• Provide an option for member conferences to "opt out" of NCAA championships and participate in an alternative season-ending opportunity.

• Determine if 64 teams is the ideal maximum for any championship bracket. (The committee noted that expansion of a bracket beyond 64 teams may require an increase in the number of weeks needed for championship competition.)

• Adjust the current championships team sport access ratio of one for every 6.5 (or 1:6.5) Division III members sponsoring a team sport.

Ideas forwarded from the Membership Committee include:

• Enable Division III institutions to reclassify to Divisions I and II.

• Adjust sports-sponsorship requirements based on enrollment.

• Increase minimum contest requirements for sports sponsorship.

• Increase the minimum number of required student-athlete participants in individual sports, if the sport is used to meet minimum sports-sponsorship requirements.

• Continue to permit national dual membership affiliations (for example, dual membership in the NCAA and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics).

• Review the extent to which institutional chief executive officers are involved in the oversight of intercollegiate athletics.

• Better involve other institutional officers to whom athletics directors report.

• Consider creation of a Conference Self-Study Guide.

Both committees also suggested for further discussion the idea of permitting conference realignment for a limited time without the loss of automatic qualification to championships.

That idea and the ideas of permitting conferences to "opt out" of NCAA championships and basing sports-sponsorship requirements on enrollment also were addressed in the most recent discussions of Division III's Virtual Focus Groups (VFGs) -- e-mail discussion groups moderated by Management Council members and including chief executive officers, faculty athletics representatives, athletics administrators, student-athletes and coaches from each conference and from independent institutions.

Those ideas generated more responses -- 59 individuals responded with opinions through April 7 -- than any previous round of VFG discussions. Not surprisingly, much like the forum discussion at the 2005 Convention, responses from VFG participants were wide-ranging, but not conclusive.

The Management Council, after including the Convention discussion and survey results in its review, listed other ideas for the oversight group to discuss. They include:

• Considering ways of ensuring that student-athletes perform academically in a manner consistent with nonathletes.

• Consider basing evaluation and compensation of athletics department personnel on criteria beyond wins and losses, consistent with the institution's ed- ucational priorities.

• Consider hiring coaches in a manner consistent with hiring in other institutional units.

• Consider programming to enhance opportunities for minority student-athletes.

The Future of Division III -- Phase II Oversight Group will review the compiled list of ideas when it meets the night before the next meeting of the Division III Presidents Council. The presidents, who meet April 28 in Indianapolis, will receive a report from the oversight group and also have their own opportunity to discuss membership feedback and ideas generated to date in the Future of Division III -- Phase II initiative.

Student-athlete well-being

The Management Council also forwarded to the Presidents Council proposed legislation for the 2006 Convention that would permit a representative of an institution's athletics interest to provide an occasional meal in a restaurant for a team.

That proposal, which would be voted on by Convention delegates if sponsored by the Presidents Council, came from a package of proposals recommended by the Division III Interpretations and Legislation Committee as part of a student-athlete well-being initiative.

The package also included 21 proposals deemed noncontroversial by the Council. Among other things, those proposals would:

• Permit post-enrollment tryouts with professional teams, and permit institutions to provide actual and necessary expenses so long as those tryouts occur outside the student-athletes' playing and practice season and do not exceed 48 hours.

• Amend Bylaw 12.5.1.6, which currently permits a student-athlete's name or picture to appear in educational materials related to sport-skill instruction, to permit a student-athlete to receive actual and necessary expenses for engaging in that activity.

• Permit an institution, at its own discretion, to publicize a prospect's commitment to attend that institution via such communication technologies as e-mail, list-serves or text-messaging.

• Permit a local sports club team that employs an institution's coach to include prospective student-athletes who live beyond a 50-mile radius of the institution's campus, if the club is the closest club team opportunity for those prospects.

• Allow prospective student-athletes in all sports to participate at their discretion in all-star games before full-time enrollment at an institution.

• Provide institutions with discretion to define family members when extending benefits to a student-athlete's family.

• Amend Bylaw 16.12.1 to permit more flexibility in various circumstances involving benefits, gifts and services, including travel related to a foreign tour and occasional meals provided by the parent of a student-athlete to team members.

In a separate action also benefiting student-athletes, the Council endorsed a recommendation from the Division III Championships Committee to allocate $5,000 at each of 22 Division III championships during 2005-06 to enhance the student-athlete experience.

The funds could be used for purposes ranging from creating student-athlete hospitality areas to scheduling events such as opening ceremonies or high-profile speakers to providing mementos such as championships apparel or highlights videos (see the February 14 issue of The NCAA News).

Strategic initiatives

Council members also endorsed several recommendations from the Presidents Council and Management Council Strategic-Planning Subcommittee.

They included recommendations to provide funding for division-wide sportsmanship efforts; to support attendance at the NCAA Convention by institutional officers other than chief executive officers (such as chief student affairs or academic officers) who oversee athletics; and to support an educational partnership between the NCAA and the National Association of Division III Athletics Administrators.

It also endorsed a reduction from six to four in the number of student-athlete regional leadership conferences per program cycle, thus enabling institutions to send participants to a conference every other year instead of every three years. It also approved including part-time athletics personnel, faculty athletics representatives and student-affairs staff among representatives.

The Council also began consideration of an enhanced conference grant program that would give member conferences more authority and discretion over how Division III funds for strategic initiatives are used.

The program, which could be included in the Division III budget for 2006-07 and 2007-08, is envisioned as a means of enhancing conference and institutional autonomy and broadening membership participation in achieving the division's strategic goals and objectives, while reducing costs and achieving greater efficiency in administering various programs.

Council members will continue discussion of the proposed program at its July meeting.

Other highlights

Division III Management Council
April 11-12/Indianapolis

• Supported providing "best practices" information to athletics administrators, coaches, athletic trainers and conference commissioners for use in promoting student-athlete acclimatization during preseason practice for fall sports.

• Approved the Division III Championships Committee's proposed changes in selection criteria for team championships (as reported in the February 14 issue of The NCAA News). The Council also approved a related recommendation to permit Division III contests during an institutional break (such as a semester or spring break) to count in team sports as in-region contests for ranking and selection purposes beginning in 2006-07, but directed the Championships Committee to review aspects of that provision, including the appropriate length of the break.

• Discussed concerns expressed by the Championships Committee that legislation requiring accommodation of institutions with written policies against competition on a particular day for religious reasons increasingly is creating difficulties in efforts to minimize missed class time and in selection of hosts, as championship brackets expand. The committee was asked to provide further information about the issue for review at the Council's July meeting.

• Approved a mailing to Division III chief executive officers, athletics directors, senior woman administrators, faculty athletics representatives and conferences, including a summary of recent research about the role of senior woman administrators at institutions and also including a summary of NCAA and Division III educational opportunities and grant programs to enhance that role.

• Endorsed a proposal by the Division III Financial Aid and Awards Committee to delete Division III Bylaw 15.4.5, based on the committee's belief that variables in financial aid packaging other than need are accounted for in other legislation requiring consistency in packaging for all students. The Council also endorsed amending Bylaw 16.1.4 to adjust the value of permissible awards for inflation.

• Endorsed a package of legislative proposals from the Division III Interpretations and Legislation Committee involving recruiting (Bylaw 13), including proposals for the 2006 Convention to permit institutions to purchase meals off-campus to provide at an on-campus facility during an official visit by a prospective student-athlete and family, and to specify that subvarsity teams may not compete against high-school or preparatory-school teams.

• Endorsed a Division III Membership Committee recommendation to adopt noncontroversial legislation giving that committee authority to recommend that portions of the four-year process for reclassifying members be waived for unique circumstances.