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NCAA News Archive - 2007
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Moratorium's end could uncover potential growth
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By Jack Copeland
The NCAA News
The NCAA News
The Division III Presidents Council continued to walk the fine line between planning for the division’s own future and aiding a study of broader NCAA membership growth with an action at its August 9 meeting that served both purposes.
The Council agreed during its meeting in Indianapolis to allow a 2½-year moratorium on accepting applications from institutions wishing to join the division to expire at the end of this year.
The Council’s action is expected to permit a more accurate assessment of potential future growth in Division III — information that would be useful in a current Association-wide study of the NCAA membership structure.
However, the action also is a logical next step for Division III, which the Council believes used the pause effectively to slow rapid membership growth and to put measures in place that render the moratorium unnecessary.
“We have a clear strategy for what we’re trying to achieve relevant to membership issues,” said Presidents Council Chair John Fry, president of Franklin & Marshall College. “The first part was the approval of Proposals 9 and 10 last year, which eliminated the need for the moratorium.”
Those proposals tightened requirements for joining Division III and for maintaining active membership — including reducing the number of institutions that can enter the provisional and reclassifying membership process to four annually.
(The Council approved a waiver process during the August meeting under which a larger number of institutions could be permitted to begin the process in a given year, but also made clear that the division should accept no more than an average of four institutions annually into provisional/reclassifying membership classes.)
Fry said removing the moratorium also will help both Division III and the NCAA Executive Committee Membership Issues Working Group better understand potential future membership growth and the impact of that growth on both the division and the entire Association.
The Council instructed the NCAA Division III governance staff to publicize the end of the moratorium, which effectively has prevented institutions from doing anything more during the past two years than informally inquiring about division membership.
Interested institutions officially can apply between January and May 15, 2008, to enter exploratory membership — the first step toward entering provisional membership — or also apply to enter reclassifying membership beginning in 2008-09. Applications for exploratory membership as well as provisional or reclassifying membership are now available online at www.ncaa.org (the forms are accessible under the “About the NCAA” tab on the Web site’s home page, via the “Membership” link, then the Division III link under the heading “Membership Requirements and Waivers,” then the “Joining the Division III Membership” link).
As a result of the adoption of 2007 Convention Proposal No. 9, institutions must comply at the time of application for provisional or reclassifying membership with Division III sport-sponsorship (including minimum-contest and participant) requirements; must provide a viability statement describing the institution’s commitment to the Division III philosophy statement; must obtain sponsorship of an active Division III member; and must demonstrate the existence of an institutional compliance system.
“We’ve crafted a clear and orderly process for addressing membership growth, and frankly, to some extent, we want to see what true demand is out there for Division III membership,” Fry said. “The moratorium keeps us from knowing that.”
Division III leaders believe there is a sizable number of institutions interested in joining the division. That belief is based in part on a recent analysis by the NCAA research staff of Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act and other data publicly available from current Division III members and from institutions that currently belong to other athletics associations or are just establishing varsity athletics programs.
Taking into account the recently tightened limit on institutions entering the provisional/reclassifying membership process, data suggest that Division III membership likely will grow to more than 460 institutions during the next 10 years.
Council members agreed that ending the moratorium will be useful in framing a discussion of ways — including possibly creating a new division or subdivision — of managing that growth.
Fry suggested another reason for ending the moratorium that has more to do with Division III’s history than its future.
“There also is something philosophical in this: We’re not about keeping institutions out,” he said. “Moratoriums are not a way to solve problems. It was a reasonable thing for us to do a couple of years ago, in light of all the various proposals that we had to make our way through, but now we have a clear strategy of how we want to proceed.”
The Presidents Council agreed in Indianapolis that the strategy includes enlisting presidents and chancellors at all Division III institutions as participants in the process of managing growth.
Membership issues were the primary topic of discussion during the annual summer meeting of the Division III Chancellors/Presidents Advisory Group August 8. The group includes Council members and chancellors or presidents from conferences that currently aren’t represented by presidents on the Division III Presidents or Management Councils.
The Council wants to broaden the discussion to include chancellors and presidents on campuses — and wants to do it while ideas still are being gathered and considered on best approaches to dealing with growth issues. That’s why Council members believe it is important for institutions’ chief executives to attend the 2008 Convention in Nashville — which will feature both Association-wide and division-specific discussions of how to proceed with membership issues — rather than wait until specific proposals are presented in 2009.
“They’ll have an opportunity to interact directly with their colleagues, as well as a mix of constituencies,” Fry said. “They can hear the discussion from the coaches’ standpoint, the athletics directors’ standpoint and from others in the NCAA, and also spend time with their conferences, too. There are a couple or more ways they can plug into these discussions and consider all of the perspectives.
“We’ll be looking to try to make the Convention schedule as convenient and easy as possible for presidents, given their busy schedules, so that they can attend for a limited time and participate in a full set of conversations about this as they prepare to wrestle with these issues when they get back to their institutions.”
Fry added that the discussion is worthy of chancellors’ and presidents’ time.
“This is a very significant point of reflection for the entire Association, and especially for Division III,” he said. “I’d hate to be making what I consider monumental decisions without the full participation of all the presidents in Division III.
“I think it is a fiduciary responsibility to be involved — we institutions are the owners of the division. Therefore, we in turn have a responsibility to put aside the time necessary to fully participate. This is not something presidents and chancellors can delegate. This is a presidents’ and chancellors’ decision.”
The Council agreed during its meeting in Indianapolis to allow a 2½-year moratorium on accepting applications from institutions wishing to join the division to expire at the end of this year.
The Council’s action is expected to permit a more accurate assessment of potential future growth in Division III — information that would be useful in a current Association-wide study of the NCAA membership structure.
However, the action also is a logical next step for Division III, which the Council believes used the pause effectively to slow rapid membership growth and to put measures in place that render the moratorium unnecessary.
“We have a clear strategy for what we’re trying to achieve relevant to membership issues,” said Presidents Council Chair John Fry, president of Franklin & Marshall College. “The first part was the approval of Proposals 9 and 10 last year, which eliminated the need for the moratorium.”Those proposals tightened requirements for joining Division III and for maintaining active membership — including reducing the number of institutions that can enter the provisional and reclassifying membership process to four annually.
(The Council approved a waiver process during the August meeting under which a larger number of institutions could be permitted to begin the process in a given year, but also made clear that the division should accept no more than an average of four institutions annually into provisional/reclassifying membership classes.)
Fry said removing the moratorium also will help both Division III and the NCAA Executive Committee Membership Issues Working Group better understand potential future membership growth and the impact of that growth on both the division and the entire Association.
The Council instructed the NCAA Division III governance staff to publicize the end of the moratorium, which effectively has prevented institutions from doing anything more during the past two years than informally inquiring about division membership.
Interested institutions officially can apply between January and May 15, 2008, to enter exploratory membership — the first step toward entering provisional membership — or also apply to enter reclassifying membership beginning in 2008-09. Applications for exploratory membership as well as provisional or reclassifying membership are now available online at www.ncaa.org (the forms are accessible under the “About the NCAA” tab on the Web site’s home page, via the “Membership” link, then the Division III link under the heading “Membership Requirements and Waivers,” then the “Joining the Division III Membership” link).
As a result of the adoption of 2007 Convention Proposal No. 9, institutions must comply at the time of application for provisional or reclassifying membership with Division III sport-sponsorship (including minimum-contest and participant) requirements; must provide a viability statement describing the institution’s commitment to the Division III philosophy statement; must obtain sponsorship of an active Division III member; and must demonstrate the existence of an institutional compliance system.
“We’ve crafted a clear and orderly process for addressing membership growth, and frankly, to some extent, we want to see what true demand is out there for Division III membership,” Fry said. “The moratorium keeps us from knowing that.”
Division III leaders believe there is a sizable number of institutions interested in joining the division. That belief is based in part on a recent analysis by the NCAA research staff of Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act and other data publicly available from current Division III members and from institutions that currently belong to other athletics associations or are just establishing varsity athletics programs.
Taking into account the recently tightened limit on institutions entering the provisional/reclassifying membership process, data suggest that Division III membership likely will grow to more than 460 institutions during the next 10 years.
Council members agreed that ending the moratorium will be useful in framing a discussion of ways — including possibly creating a new division or subdivision — of managing that growth.
Fry suggested another reason for ending the moratorium that has more to do with Division III’s history than its future.
“There also is something philosophical in this: We’re not about keeping institutions out,” he said. “Moratoriums are not a way to solve problems. It was a reasonable thing for us to do a couple of years ago, in light of all the various proposals that we had to make our way through, but now we have a clear strategy of how we want to proceed.”
The Presidents Council agreed in Indianapolis that the strategy includes enlisting presidents and chancellors at all Division III institutions as participants in the process of managing growth.
Membership issues were the primary topic of discussion during the annual summer meeting of the Division III Chancellors/Presidents Advisory Group August 8. The group includes Council members and chancellors or presidents from conferences that currently aren’t represented by presidents on the Division III Presidents or Management Councils.
The Council wants to broaden the discussion to include chancellors and presidents on campuses — and wants to do it while ideas still are being gathered and considered on best approaches to dealing with growth issues. That’s why Council members believe it is important for institutions’ chief executives to attend the 2008 Convention in Nashville — which will feature both Association-wide and division-specific discussions of how to proceed with membership issues — rather than wait until specific proposals are presented in 2009.
“They’ll have an opportunity to interact directly with their colleagues, as well as a mix of constituencies,” Fry said. “They can hear the discussion from the coaches’ standpoint, the athletics directors’ standpoint and from others in the NCAA, and also spend time with their conferences, too. There are a couple or more ways they can plug into these discussions and consider all of the perspectives.
“We’ll be looking to try to make the Convention schedule as convenient and easy as possible for presidents, given their busy schedules, so that they can attend for a limited time and participate in a full set of conversations about this as they prepare to wrestle with these issues when they get back to their institutions.”
Fry added that the discussion is worthy of chancellors’ and presidents’ time.
“This is a very significant point of reflection for the entire Association, and especially for Division III,” he said. “I’d hate to be making what I consider monumental decisions without the full participation of all the presidents in Division III.
“I think it is a fiduciary responsibility to be involved — we institutions are the owners of the division. Therefore, we in turn have a responsibility to put aside the time necessary to fully participate. This is not something presidents and chancellors can delegate. This is a presidents’ and chancellors’ decision.”
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