CAMBRIDGE, Massachsetts — The Division I Committee on Academic Performance recommended a historically based penalty structure and the establishment of an incentives grant program at its July 10-11 meeting. Both proposals will be forwarded to the Division I Board of Directors for consideration.

The CAP’s historically based penalty structure would establish a minimum benchmark on the multi-year Academic Progress Rate of 900. Teams falling below that mark would be subject to further review and potentially to historically based penalties.

The recommendation calls for the so-called "squad-size adjustment" to remain in effect for one more year. That adjustment, which accounts for variances in data around a team’s true historical rate until four years are available, will be applied in determining historically based and contemporaneous penalties. For the upcoming year only, the squad-size adjustment will reduce the number of teams subject to historically based penalties. When the adjustment is dropped the following year, current data predict that about 3 to 6 percent of all squads may be subject to historically based penalties.

Though using the adjustment will translate to a lower number of teams receiving historically based penalties in the first year, committee members believe that using the squad-size adjustment for both contemporaneous and historically based penalties would provide consistency in the Academic Performance Program.

Teams below 900 that are subject to further review would undergo an examination of several factors, the first of which is team improvement based on a review of multi-year team APR. CAP members believe that providing some relief for team improvement would be a "carrot" for a team with a low APR. For example, a team with an APR of 850 — knowing it would take several years to reach the 900 benchmark requierd to gain relief from historically based penalties — might be more inclined to devote the resources necessary to improve if there is mid-range incentive.

"We want to provide institutions with incentives to get better, even if getting better doesn’t get them all the way to 900 or 925," said Walter Harrison, CAP chair and president of the University of Hartford.

Additionally, each team with an APR below 900 will be reviewed on several comparative factors. A within-sport comparison will determine whether a squad falls within the bottom 10 percent of team APRs within that sport. Teams must be above the 10th percentile to qualify for relief using that factor.

Also, comparisons will be made based on characteristics of each institution (formerly called "institutional mission") that include both academic and resource components. The academic component requires student-athletes on the team in question to have a projected federal graduation rate of 10 or more percentage points higher than the student-body rate. The resource component compares institutional, athletics and student resources across Division I to identify the bottom 10 percent in per-capita educational expenses, per-capita athletics department operating expenditures and average Pell Grant awards among students at the schools with the fewest resources devoted to academic services.

The committee also developed an "improvement plus" model to award points to a team in the review process. One point will be awarded to a team that demonstrates meaningful APR improvement, and another point will be awarded to teams that meet the by-sport comparison or either of the "institutional characteristics" requirements. An additional point will be awarded to teams that demonstrate APR improvement. Teams must earn both points to get relief from the first phase of historically based penalties (the public warning). In later phases of the historically based penalty process, penalties may be tiered based on the number of points earned.

However, in 2006-07, institutions with teams that are not subject to the first phase of historically based penalties only because the squad-size adjustment raised their score above 900 will be informed that the team would have been assessed an "occasion one" penalty had it not been for the squad-size adjustment.

All teams failing to meet both the 900 benchmark and the review criteria will have the opportunity to appeal the penalties through the CAP’s subcommittee on appeals.

Incentives program

The committee also proposed an incentives program designed to encourage low-resource and poor-performing teams to improve their APR.

The program would provide financial assistance to institutions using the 4.25 percent annual incremental increases from the Division I academic enhancement funds through the term of the CBS contract, freezing the distribution at the current rate of $58,000 per institution. The incremental increase is expected to produce about $800,000 for the proposed incentives grant program in 2006-07 and $6.5 million by 2012-13.

The funding would be distributed as annual grants to institutions reviewed under the authority of the CAP. Grants would be renewable for up to three years.

The grants must be used to fund academic initiatives designed to improve a team’s APR, and all applications must be submitted with specific plans for improving a team’s APR. The plans and any progress toward APR improvement would be reviewed annually.

Low-resource and penalized institutions would be prioritized during the review process. Low-resource institutions would be defined using the same process outlined for the historically based penalty relief — examining data on institutional, athletics department and student resources.

• Reaffirmed its position against Proposal No. 05-97, which would exclude student-athletes who graduate early from the APR cohort. Committee members also continued to oppose a Division I Management Council suggestion to allow early graduates to remain in the cohort if they earn the eligibility point (postgraduates always earn the retention point), but remove them if they do not earn that point. CAP members believe such a policy change would essentially give postgraduate student-athletes the opportunity to participate in athletics without attending class.
• Changed some of the nomenclature in the Academic Performance Program, including "academic improvement plan" to "APR Improvement Plan," "institutional mission" to "institutional characteristics" and "graduation bonus point" to "delayed graduation point." Members believe the new terminology is more accurate.
• Approved a tiered system of review for contemporaneous-penalty waivers, including subjecting teams with an APR below 900 to a more stringent review in the contemporaneous-penalty waiver process than those above 900.