DALLAS -- Unchecked membership growth poses potential problems ranging from championships that threaten to grow beyond manageable size to a proliferation of programs that support too few sports, judging from comments from a sampling of speakers during a January 9 forum addressing the "Future of Division III -- Phase II" initiative.

But the diversity of types, sizes and missions of institutions still offers as many strengths as weaknesses in a division that likely will number 450 members by 2010 -- so long as those members remain committed to the division's core purposes both philosophically and in practice.

Delegates from Division III schools gathered in round-table discussions during the forum to review results of a recent survey that asked questions about membership growth and diversity.

They discussed those results and offered a variety of suggestions for dealing with such specific issues as protecting championships access, providing broad opportunities for athletics participation, supporting academic performance by student-athletes, preserving the role of athletics in campus life, and promoting institutions' ability to compete against other schools that are similar in approach and commitment to sports.

Those discussions resulted in the suggestion by some participants that most challenges facing Division III can be addressed effectively -- so long as institutions operate athletics programs within the division's existing philosophies. The survey indicated continuing broad support for those tenets.

"If you take any of the issues that are being discussed, and you test them at your institution against the Division III philosophy -- and the survey says nearly 100 percent agree with the division philosophy -- and you find your institution is consistent, you have far fewer problems," said Michael Miranda, faculty athletics representative at Plattsburgh State University of New York and incoming chair of the Division III Management Council. "It means that as an Association and as institutions, we can hang together, because everyone seems to be supportive of the philosophy."

Even forum participants who called for relatively drastic actions -- including capping membership at its current level and requiring institutions to achieve more broad-based sports sponsorship -- conceded that the current membership probably can work through problems, so long as actions are taken to prevent those challenges from growing bigger.

Don't presume legislation

The means of addressing those challenges remains an open question, Division III Presidents Council Chair Phillip Stone told forum attendees.

"Please do not assume that the governance structure has identified specific legislative solutions regarding any of the issues addressed in the survey," Stone said -- an admonition he repeated throughout the 21/ 2-hour session.

"Some things are best addressed at the institutional level, some at conferences, and some even through sharing of best practices," he said.

The wide range of suggestions that were exchanged in about 50 round-table discussions around the Gaylord Texan & Convention Center's Texas Ballroom -- and offered during an open discussion session just before the session adjourned -- included approaches that might travel any of those paths, or for that matter actually result in legislation in cases where the membership demonstrates consensus.

Discussions during the forum were jump-started by a presentation by Eric Hartung, NCAA associate director of research, of findings from a membership survey in which more than 80 percent of Division III institutions participated last fall.

Among the findings:

• Seventy percent of respondents strongly support or support maintaining the current Division III structure, but nearly 40 percent indicated some level of support for subdivision.

• About 45 percent of members indicated some level of support for limiting membership growth, but the percentage of institutions that strongly support both subdivision and limiting membership growth numbers only 6 percent -- and those institutions mostly are expensive to attend, highly selective, and have a high proportion of student-athletes relative to the student body.

• There is no majority support for any of a number of practical approaches to treating championships access, including eliminating Pool C berths, expanding championships to four weeks in length, or increasing minimum conference sponsorship.

• Slightly more than half of respondents strongly support or support establishing policy to encourage sport equity and about half strongly support or support capping travel rosters, while 44 percent strongly support or support establishing limits on coaching staffs.

• Approaches to sports sponsorship issues received mixed levels of support, with similar proportions of respondents strongly supporting or supporting increasing sponsorship requirements (31 percent), or strongly opposing or opposing such requirements (38 percent). Similar proportions of the membership (about 30 percent each) strongly supported or supported -- or strongly opposed or opposed -- adjusting sports sponsorship requirements on the basis of enrollment.

• A majority of respondents support using graduation rates and college grade-point average in assessing student-athletes' academic performance, but are notably less enthusiastic about using other criteria.

• Most respondents support conferences consisting of institutions with some common traits, including institutional missions, academic and athletics profiles, and geographic proximity, but are split on permitting realignment without loss of automatic qualification for championships.

"The results do not necessarily provide answers, but they provide directions to take," Hartung said.

Challenging journey ahead

Those directions may be at all points of the compass, and selecting the ones where most members can travel comfortably will be challenging, judging from comments offered during the forum.

Among suggestions, in the general order they were offered during the forum:

• Consider criteria for automatic qualification that promote sport and program equity, such as compliance with Title IX.

• Shift Division III championships funding to support of conference and perhaps regional championships.

• Increase minimum sports-sponsorship requirements, or perhaps take less drastic steps in that direction, such as grandfathering sponsorship levels for current members while requiring new members to meet increased minimums.

• Acknowledge that institutional officers other than presidents or chancellors may have direct authority over athletics on campus and include those individuals in Division III communication channels -- but take care not to harm CEO authority, and if appropriate, take steps to pressure institutions to ensure CEOs exercise responsibility for athletics.

• Consider creating separate levels of competition in championships, rather than take the more extreme step of subdivision.

• Consider significantly increasing membership dues.

All those comments, along with numerous others collected in each of the round-table discussions, will be reviewed during by the Future of Division III -- Phase II Oversight Group (consisting of members of the Division III Presidents and Management Councils) as it begins considering next steps in the Phase II initiative.

The review process will begin with the Division III Championships and Membership Committees in meetings taking place during the next few weeks. Discussion also will involve Division III's recently formed virtual focus groups, and additional dialogue will be encouraged at the institutional and conference levels.

Proposed legislation resulting from the initiative, if any, would be considered at the 2006 Convention.