A four-year reform movement that has sought to ensure that student-athletes primarily are students, to promote athletics’ place within the diverse educational missions of a rapidly growing membership, and to strengthen commitment to the Division III philosophy officially ends January 9 with voting on an extensive legislative agenda at the 2006 Convention.

Division III delegates could handle as many as 29 proposals during that day’s business session beginning at 8 a.m. in the Indianapolis Downtown Marriott Ballroom. Twenty of those proposals have been designated by the Division III Presidents Council for roll-call voting — although sponsors have indicated they plan to withdraw three proposals included in that group.

The Presidents Council’s legislative grouping includes three proposals originating directly from the work of the Future of Division III-Phase II Oversight Group, which spent the past two years studying issues related to membership growth and diversity, integration of athletics into campus life, and ways to further ensure that institutional and conference practices are in line with philosophical principles.

The grouping also includes proposals originating from the Division III Membership Committee and endorsed by the Presidents Council that would increase sports sponsorship and implement minimum-contest requirements — in keeping with the division’s broad-based participation philosophy.

In addition, the grouping includes seven proposals sponsored by member conferences and institutions that address various issues raised during the Future of Division III initiative — including a North Coast Athletic Conference-sponsored membership-cap proposal that has prompted concerns outside of Division III about its Association-wide impact, and a pair of proposals (including one that apparently will be withdrawn) that would reverse Future of Division III reforms approved by the membership at the 2004 Convention.

The heart of the Presidents Council grouping touches on three topics: membership growth, strengthening commitment to aspects of the Division III philosophy, and institutional and conference autonomy.

Membership growth

A membership-sponsored proposal — the NCAC’s effort to cap the number of institutions that can belong to Division III — has garnered much of the pre-Convention attention, but the Future of Division III-Phase II Oversight Group also put forth a proposal that seeks to deal with a specific aspect of membership growth.

The oversight group has proposed a cap on the size of championships brackets, which recently have been expanding in step with divisional growth to the point where they soon will require longer championships, which in turn would cause student-athletes to miss more class time.

The oversight group, in 2006 Convention Proposal No. 11, seeks to cap bracket sizes for team sports at 64, thus ensuring that sports committees can complete those events within three weeks of competition. The proposal also would cap the football championship at its current bracket size of 32 teams and limit of five weeks needed to complete that event.

The NCAC has cited its own concerns about championships — specifically, preserving access for the division’s current members — among several reasons for sponsoring Proposal No. 12, which would set a maximum size for Division III based on its June 1, 2006, total of active, provisional and reclassifying institutions. That total would include all provisional members and exploratory institutions as of last September 1, and any Divisions I and II institutions initiating reclassification by June 1, 2006. The cap would be at about 455 members.

The conference also believes that membership growth threatens current levels of NCAA programs and services enjoyed by Division III members and more generally affects efforts to plan the best ways to use the division’s fixed share of Association revenues.

In October, the Presidents Council

agreed to support the NCAC proposal, but as a result of action by the NCAA Executive Committee to establish a multidivision presidential group to review membership issues, the Council will ask Division III delegates to refer the proposal to that group for consideration, and to delay a final vote until the 2007 Convention. The Council also established a Division III membership moratorium through the 2007 Convention.

The Membership Committee’s proposals, while based on a Division III philosophical principle encouraging “participation by maximizing the number and variety of athletics opportunities” for student-athletes, also touch on the membership-

growth debate by increasing requirements for achieving and maintaining division membership.

The adoption of Proposal No. 6 would increase in most sports — and significantly so in some sports — the minimum number of contests that schools must complete annually. It specifically requires institutions to play 70 percent of the division-wide average number of completed contests for each sport.

Meanwhile, Proposal No. 8 addresses the current range in the number of sports sponsored by member schools by increasing minimum required sponsorship from 10 to 12 sports (six for men, six for women). The proposal would become effective in 2010, giving schools time to meet the requirement, and also would exempt schools with undergraduate enrollments of fewer than 1,000.

An alternative approach is featured in Proposal No. 7, sponsored by the NCAC but opposed by the Presidents Council, which prefers the Membership Committee’s approach. The NCAC proposal would increase the minimum by one sport for every 100 students beyond an enrollment of 1,100, up to a minimum of 14 sports for institutions with 1,400 or more students.

Commitment to philosophy

A four-part proposal originating from the oversight group arguably represents the most direct attempt from the second phase of the Future of Division II initiative to address members’ commitment to the Division II philosophy, while respecting institutional autonomy to deal with the issues.

Proposal No. 9 would amend the Division III philosophy statement as follows:

n To explicitly note coaches’ “significant role as educators.”

n To indicate that student-athletes’ academic performance shall be, “at a minimum, consistent with that of the general student body.”

n To state that admissions policies for student-athletes should “comply with policies and procedures applicable to the general student body.”

n To indicate that administration of an institution’s athletics program (including hiring, compensation, professional development and certification of coaches) “should be integrated into the campus culture and educational mission.”

While that proposal seeks to broaden members schools’ philosophical commitment to integration of athletics into institutions’ educational missions, two other membership-sponsored proposals challenge specific philosophy-based actions taken by the membership at the 2004 Convention.

One of the proposals (No. 3) would reinstate the “season of competition” that permits “redshirting.” That standard was replaced at the 2004 Convention with a “season of participation” standard — rooted in the philosophy statement’s primary emphasis on the “overall quality of the educational experience and on the successful completion of all students’ academic programs” — that basically specifies that a student-athlete who continues to practice with a team after the first contest of the season uses one of four available seasons of participation, with limited academic exceptions.

The Presidents Council unanimously expressed its opposition to the proposal at its October meeting, and additionally endorsed a separate conference-sponsored proposal (No. 4) that would broaden the current legislation by also counting a season of participation for student-athletes who redshirt at any institution outside Division III before transferring into the division.

The Council also opposed Proposal No. 18, which also would roll back a 2004 action. However, the sponsoring conference plans to withdraw that proposal, which would permit four additional days of athletically related activity, along with a second and third day of competition, during the nontraditional segment in six sports.

Autonomy

The Future of Division III-Phase II Oversight Group’s third proposal (No. 13) seeks to strengthen conferences’ ability to exercise autonomy in their activities — and just as importantly, to promote discussion among conference members about shared philosophy and practices, beyond championships access — by requiring completion of a Conference Self-Study Guide.

The CSSG would prompt conferences to review a variety of subjects ranging from institutional missions and conference philosophy to governance structures to compliance activities.

Anticipating that the self-study might result in decisions by some schools to move into a conference that may be a better fit philosophically, Proposal No. 13 also would establish a two-year period after completion of the CSSG during which institutional realignment could occur without loss by affected conferences of championships automatic qualification.

The Presidents Council’s support for the proposed CSSG ultimately led to its decision to oppose two membership-sponsored proposals that also would permit realignment without loss of automatic qualification on grounds that those proposals do not accommodate conference self-study.

Proposal No. 15, sponsored by the Empire 8, would preserve automatic qualification for a conference that temporarily fails to meet the seven-school sponsorship requirement as a result of members’ decision to move to another league or to drop a sport, while Proposal No. 14, sponsored by the Commonwealth Coast Conference, would make newly formed conferences eligible for automatic qualification during a two-year period from August 2007 through August 2009.

All three proposals (Nos. 13, 14 and 15) require that conferences maintain at least four core members. Proposal Nos. 13 and 15 preserve only one existing AQ, while Proposal No. 14 potentially could create multiple AQs.

Other proposals

In addition to the 12 proposals previewed above, the Presidents Council grouping includes eight other proposals — although two of those are expected to be withdrawn along with Proposal No. 18.

Proposal No. 5, which would permit a student-athlete who previously earned an undergraduate degree to transfer into a Division III institution and be immediately eligible for athletics participation under specified criteria, has been withdrawn by the Presidents Council, which prefers an existing waiver process.

Also, all three sponsoring conferences have indicated they will withdraw Proposal No. 10, which would eliminate from the Division III philosophy statement the emphasis on in-region competition, and also remove the in-region concept from the selection process for all team championships.

Six other proposals in the Presidents Council grouping and nine proposals slated for paddle votes during the business session are included in the accompanying listing of all Division III legislative proposals.

Before casting votes on those proposals, Division III delegates will have an opportunity to discuss the legislative agenda during a forum at 9 a.m. Sunday, January 8, in the Mariott Ballroom.