Members of the Division II Presidents Council devoted the evening before their spring meeting to enhancing Division II’s strategic position among student-athletes, the membership itself and the public at-large.

At the April 26 meeting, the Council reviewed data from a survey administered to student-athletes, the Division II membership and the general public. A total of 4,110 people responded to the survey — almost half of them student-athletes.

The student-athletes who responded indicated high satisfaction with their Division II experience — enough to prompt researcher Jeff Jacobs into asking how they could be enlisted to be ambassadors for the division.

However, the numbers were less encouraging when it came to the public’s understanding of Division II. Most respondents (28 percent) thought that the Association comprises five or more divisions, and most people (72 percent) thought that division affiliation was determined by an institution’s enrollment. Fewer than one-third of the public respondents said they had ever been to a Division II contest, and that number may have been inflated by a fuzzy understanding of what constitutes Division II membership.

In all, the responses pointed to the work that remains in helping the public understand and value the role of Division II athletics.

“This is critically important,” NCAA President Myles Brand told the presidents. “It may be tempting to see Division II as being in a unique situation, but that would not be best.

“We have had a successful branding effort that has better identified the overall NCAA purpose. Division II should stay in that context and find its unique points of emphasis.”

Much discussion focused on the “balance” theme that was used for the 2005 Presidents and Chancellors Summit. Although the approach worked well for the summit, Jacobs said that the word is more of a fact than a theme. He said the presidential challenge is to better define what that balance means for Division II student-athletes.

A final research report will be provided to the presidents in May. Recommended actions will be presented to the Presidents Council in August, with themes and key attributes being unveiled at the Division II National Championships Festival in Pensacola, Florida, in November.

Also, in the fall, consultant Rich Luker will implement a toolkit designed to help schools develop community-based programs that will benefit the school, the student-athlete and the community. That toolkit will be demonstrated at the 2007 NCAA Convention. Also, Luker will create a Division II Community Initiative Workshop that will prepare administrators to implement local-level programs.