The Committee on Academic Performance finalized the schedule for public release of Academic Progress Rate data, penalties and rewards at its October 23-24 meeting in Indianapolis.

The APR data for all teams, as well as contemporaneous and historically based penalties, will be released in late April or early May. The release date will allow all teams to complete the full appeal process for both contemporaneous and historically based penalties. This is the first year that historically based penalties will be imposed. The first-occasion historically based penalty is a public warning.

CAP members also discussed ways to facilitate easier communication about the Academic Performance Program and a greater understanding of the program among the membership and the general public, including considering a change in the terminology for penalties.

In other business, the committee endorsed a tiered system of penalties for institutions that reach the second stage of the historically based penalty structure. The proposed tiers for the occasion-two penalties emphasize improvement as a factor in determining the level at which a team is penalized.

CAP members proposed that teams with APRs below 900 that meet only the improvement standard be subject in their second year of historically based penalties to a reduction of practice time by two hours per week throughout the playing season and either an automatic reduction of scholarships by 5 percent (deducted from total aid awarded) or the total contemporaneous penalties, whichever is greater.

Teams in their second year of historically based penalties that do not meet the improvement standard would be subject to a reduction of practice time by four hours per week throughout the playing season and an automatic reduction of scholarships by 10 percent of the total aid awarded.

The committee also would require the missed practice time to be replaced with academic-support activities. Members also are considering penalties that would affect recruiting, though they recognize that recruiting time allows coaches to assess whether prospective student-athletes would be a good fit for the institution both academically and athletically. A reduction in official visits, tiered in a manner similar to the scholarship and practice time restrictions, is on the table, though other suggestions are still under consideration.

Committee Chair Walter Harrison, president of the University of Hartford, said the committee doesn’t want to hamper an institution’s ability to recruit the best student-athletes for their campus.

"We are working on identifying penalties that are meaningful and significant but at the same time don’t impede an institution’s ability to make wise decisions when recruiting student-athletes that would hopefully contribute positively to the Academic Performance Program in the future," he said.

CAP members also defined "meaningful improvement" through a statistical analysis that takes into account squad-size differences that affect observed APR variations (for example, a 20-point jump in football is more meaningful than the same jump for a smaller squad), as well as the difference between a penalized team’s APR and the benchmarks established by the committee for contemporaneous (925) and historically based (900) penalties.

The comparison would be made between a current year’s raw APR and either the previous year’s raw APR or the multi-year raw APR, whichever is more favorable to an institution.

Additionally, CAP members began discussion about the impact student-athletes who transfer have on the APR. The committee requested more data and will review the issue after a third year of data — including two years of student-athlete transfer behavior — is available in the spring.