The academic-reform initiatives underway in Division I are having their effect. There is a greater understanding of the structure now that constituents have had time to familiarize themselves with the details, and momentum is building toward the intended behavior change demanded by the accountability metric called the Academic Progress Rate.

Personally, I am quite pleased with the progress that the Committee on Academic Performance is making under the able leadership of University of Hartford President Walt Harrison, and with the fact that his peers on the Division I Board of Directors have embraced the CAP's recent recommendations on APR adjustments.

There has been one disturbing trend, however, in the six months since the first set of APR data were compiled and released, and that is an over-emphasis on contemporaneous penalties and failure to see that they are just warning steps toward a much broader reform.

Such a reaction may be understandable. After all, there only was one year of data to roll out. But fueled by the publicity of the press and, to an extent, confusion in the membership, people forgot the point of the initial APR release. The 2003-04 data were intended as an educational tool for institutions to prepare for the next year when contemporaneous penalties actually go into effect. It was reiterated time and again that no penalties would be applied based on the 2003-04 cohort, and that the release of APRs was to serve only as a corrective measure for teams that may be on the wrong academic track. More importantly, the initial interest in the APR and contemporaneous penalties overshadowed the fact that the primary tools for academic reform are the historical-penalty approach, which requires multiple years of data.

Instead, the press -- and some in the membership as well -- misinterpreted the release as a labeling of programs. Of course, it never was the intent to use only one year of data for such a purpose. However, one year of data was all we had, and the press misinterpreted the data as a judgment, not a warning.

In hindsight, I agree with releasing APR data. To be sure, there were some points to be learned in the first go-round, such as timing the waiver and data-correction window so that the APRs released are accurate and final, but making the APR public is integral to the reform system's success. If the APR is to have its intended accountability, the publicity generated by its release is constructive.

But program labeling was not -- and is not -- the point of the APR. We need to remember that the academic-reform package was designed as a progression. First, we strengthened eligibility standards and raised the core-course bar. Second, we enhanced progress-toward-degree standards proven by research as benchmarks for graduation success. Then we developed the Academic Progress and Graduation Success Rates that provide real-time and more accurate assessments of student-athlete academic success. All of that has been a two-year process.

The subsequent accountability structure also is based on a progression. The first year of data is to be used as an aid to institutions, not as punishment. When contemporaneous penalties kick in after the second year, they simply are shots across the bow, not major holes in the hull. Even the first two years of the historical penalties based on a rolling four-year APR calculation are designed to change behavior, not sanction.

The third- and fourth-year measures under the historically based structure are what will be telling. If teams ignore the behavior-change signals delivered through each of the structure's preliminary stages, then serious scholarship, participation and fiscal restrictions will result.

We frequently have used the phrase "identifying the worst of the worst" in reform discussions. Those are the programs the historically based structure is meant to address. And in all practicality, there should not be the need to apply those penalties. With so many corrective measures in place early on to steer teams away from further trouble, programs would have to blatantly ignore the flashing crossing gates to be hit by the train.

Thus, the contemporaneous penalties people misinterpreted as the primary sanctions are not the primary sanctions at all. They merely are the early steps in the progression designed to keep teams and institutions from incurring the resource sanctions later on.

It is time to change this misinterpreted focus on contemporaneous penalties to the historically based structure. The first warning letters will be issued to under-performing teams in fall 2006, based on three years of APR data. Scholarship and recruiting restrictions follow in fall 2007 if the under-performance continues. Postseason participation bans and membership restrictions apply in the years after that.

The contemporaneous penalties are not the primary sanctions people have interpreted them to be; nor are they meant to label programs as having failed academically. They are designed to change behavior and to keep teams from being identified as among "the worst of the worst."

A presidential colleague put it correctly during the Board's August 4 meeting when he said, "We are engaged in radical reform that is being cautiously implemented." That is exactly right. The desired reform outcome will be realized through a collective and long-term effect, not through the effect of any one of its short-term parts.

When the two-year APR cohort is released later this fall and contemporaneous penalties are announced for the first time, there again will be the temptation to label and rank programs based on a single reform component. The fact is, though, that this next stage is but another step toward the collective approach of providing a roadmap to student-athlete academic success.

It is up to all of us to make sure that the general public and the athletics departments understand that these two years of data and the accompanying contemporaneous penalties are not intended as a labeling of any department or teams. We must all send common and consistent messages if we are not to mislead the public, the press and ourselves again. To do otherwise would be to miss the larger point of reform.

Myles Brand is president of the NCAA.