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Efforts to improve sub-par APR include new online reporting
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By Michelle Brutlag Hosick
The NCAA News
The NCAA News
The Division I Committee on Academic Performance placed an increased emphasis earlier this year on the Academic Progress Rate Improvement Plan, considered an essential component of any team’s recovery from a sub-par APR.
Institutions always have been required to create and keep on file an APR improvement plan for all teams with APRs below the 925 benchmark. But CAP has now revised the guidelines to require teams below 900 — and teams that are submitting waivers, applying for supplement support funds or are subject to the data-review process — to submit to the national office APR improvement plans that include specific APR goals for the immediate year and each subsequent year until the team’s multi-year APR reaches 925.
Plans can be submitted to the national office this fall through a newly created online process.
APR data collection for 2006-07 is underway, and for many institutions, the added requirement of submitting the improvement plan should be as simple as updating the plan already created and sending it to the national office.
However, some institutions may not have heeded the requirement to create an improvement plan when a team fell below 925, and the national office is now offering assistance in creating and updating plans.
Officials recommend broad-based campus involvement in creating the improvement plans, including representatives from the faculty, institutional administration and athletics.
Jean Boyd, associate athletics director at Arizona State University, said the improvement plan put together by a diverse constituency helped raise the APR of the football program at his institution.
“We set up a committee of not just athletics directors, staff and coaches, but also people from the learning resource center, the disability center, the faculty and admissions,” he said. “We put together a comprehensive team of people to create the improvement plan, and then we’ve reviewed it each year. We continue to see progress where we need to, and we anticipate that in the 2008-09 reporting cycle, all of our teams will be over 925.”
Analyzing lost points
In constructing an improvement plan, institutions are advised to identify issues that are impacting the APRs of a particular team through in-depth analysis of how points are lost. The institution can then tailor its improvement plan to address those issues.
For example, if a team is losing most of its APR points because of retention as opposed to eligibility, then perhaps a mentoring program would help, or further examining admissions procedures. If eligibility points are the culprit, then increased study-hall hours and a tutoring program would be possible solutions.
Josh Moon, compliance director at Central Michigan University, said the team that put together the improvement plan for his institution identified assistant coaches, particularly for the football team, as primary monitors of student-athlete academic progress.
“We want to make sure that (assistant coaches) really had the pulse of what student-athletes are doing academically,” Moon said.
Institutions building a plan must set realistic goals for APR improvement. For example, predicting that a team with a multi-year APR of 850 will achieve a single year APR of 1,000 each year is not practical. However, CAP expects an institution to set logical improvement goals, in keeping with its characteristics and resources, that will help a team reach the 925 benchmark in a reasonable amount of time.
Moon said creating the APR improvement plan benefited the institution in a variety of ways, perhaps most importantly by helping the entire campus — not just athletics — realize that the academic success of student-athletes (and by extension the Academic Performance Program) is important.
“It created awareness around the campus, especially among the core group of people who worked on it, that (APR) is here to stay, and it’s something we have to make sure we actively address,” Moon said. “Because we already have a plan in place, we’re not left to put something together after the fact.”
Moon advised other institutions to create a plan in ways that will benefit the whole institution.“You need to make sure everyone is aware of APR and how important it is, and how being active with the plan will help you with your data,” Moon said. “It’s important to create awareness.”
Institutions always have been required to create and keep on file an APR improvement plan for all teams with APRs below the 925 benchmark. But CAP has now revised the guidelines to require teams below 900 — and teams that are submitting waivers, applying for supplement support funds or are subject to the data-review process — to submit to the national office APR improvement plans that include specific APR goals for the immediate year and each subsequent year until the team’s multi-year APR reaches 925.
Plans can be submitted to the national office this fall through a newly created online process.
APR data collection for 2006-07 is underway, and for many institutions, the added requirement of submitting the improvement plan should be as simple as updating the plan already created and sending it to the national office.
However, some institutions may not have heeded the requirement to create an improvement plan when a team fell below 925, and the national office is now offering assistance in creating and updating plans.
Officials recommend broad-based campus involvement in creating the improvement plans, including representatives from the faculty, institutional administration and athletics.
Jean Boyd, associate athletics director at Arizona State University, said the improvement plan put together by a diverse constituency helped raise the APR of the football program at his institution.
“We set up a committee of not just athletics directors, staff and coaches, but also people from the learning resource center, the disability center, the faculty and admissions,” he said. “We put together a comprehensive team of people to create the improvement plan, and then we’ve reviewed it each year. We continue to see progress where we need to, and we anticipate that in the 2008-09 reporting cycle, all of our teams will be over 925.”
Analyzing lost points
In constructing an improvement plan, institutions are advised to identify issues that are impacting the APRs of a particular team through in-depth analysis of how points are lost. The institution can then tailor its improvement plan to address those issues.
For example, if a team is losing most of its APR points because of retention as opposed to eligibility, then perhaps a mentoring program would help, or further examining admissions procedures. If eligibility points are the culprit, then increased study-hall hours and a tutoring program would be possible solutions.
Josh Moon, compliance director at Central Michigan University, said the team that put together the improvement plan for his institution identified assistant coaches, particularly for the football team, as primary monitors of student-athlete academic progress.
“We want to make sure that (assistant coaches) really had the pulse of what student-athletes are doing academically,” Moon said.
Institutions building a plan must set realistic goals for APR improvement. For example, predicting that a team with a multi-year APR of 850 will achieve a single year APR of 1,000 each year is not practical. However, CAP expects an institution to set logical improvement goals, in keeping with its characteristics and resources, that will help a team reach the 925 benchmark in a reasonable amount of time.
Moon said creating the APR improvement plan benefited the institution in a variety of ways, perhaps most importantly by helping the entire campus — not just athletics — realize that the academic success of student-athletes (and by extension the Academic Performance Program) is important.“It created awareness around the campus, especially among the core group of people who worked on it, that (APR) is here to stay, and it’s something we have to make sure we actively address,” Moon said. “Because we already have a plan in place, we’re not left to put something together after the fact.”
Moon advised other institutions to create a plan in ways that will benefit the whole institution.“You need to make sure everyone is aware of APR and how important it is, and how being active with the plan will help you with your data,” Moon said. “It’s important to create awareness.”
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