The Oversight and Monitoring Group charged with shepherding recommendations from the Presidential Task Force on the Future of Division I Intercollegiate Athletics is interested in how the Association’s “dashboard indicators” project will shake out over the next several months.

The dashboard initiative – which takes financial data collected under uniform terminology and provides an aggregate vision of spending trends in athletics – should be ready for roll-out this spring. Members of the presidential-based OMG are keen on a presentation about the dashboards to the Division I Board of Directors January 13 in Nashville, Tennessee, in conjunction with the NCAA Convention. Members of the OMG who also have seats on the Board will be looking for a universal understanding of the way athletics financial data are submitted and how the dashboard indicators will be used to carry out the Task Force’s call for moderation in budget growth.

The dashboards are to fiscal responsibility as the Academic Progress Rate is to academic reform. They are benchmarks developed on a by-campus basis that provide presidents, athletics directors and university CFOs the most comprehensive, accurate and comparable data to date that inform decisions about athletics spending.

In simple terms, the project allows schools to compare themselves to a collection of like institutions in specific categories. So, for example, a large, public, land-grant institution can compare itself to others in that demographic in football revenues, facility investments, athletics giving and the reliance upon university subsidy to balance the athletics budget, among other comparatives. Those close to the project say the dashboards will be the best customized financial data Division I has ever had.

Nancy Zimpher, president of the University of Cincinnati and a member of both the OMG and the Board of Directors, said the dashboards are the educational tool presidents need to inform decisions about investing in athletics. She also challenged her peers to use the data in ways that make a difference.

“Reform at its most basic level is awareness,” she said, referring to the dashboards. “But what is fiscal reform at its highest level?”

Zimpher spoke during an OMG conference call December 17. The group plans its next in-person meeting this spring.

NCAA President Myles Brand appointed the OMG to keep the Task Force recommendations alive and moving through the governance structure when necessary. In addition to fiscal issues, the OMG also is keeping its eye on presidential leadership, particularly in how that is reflected in presidents’ relationships with their governing boards.

Association of Governing Boards Executive Director Rick Legon is the featured speaker at a breakfast NCAA President Brand is hosting at the Convention, which continues the collaboration between the AGB and the NCAA on presidential-leadership issues.

OMG member and University of Arizona President Emeritus Peter Likins, who chaired the Task Force, said the NCAA must extend the president/board leadership template to the faculty as well.

“Presidential leadership should reflect a sharper understanding of faculty perspectives,” he said. “We have stated the president/board need but have not been as articulate about presidential leadership when it comes to faculty.”

In that vein, one of the Association-wide sessions at the Convention extends a conversation begun in October about a Knight Commission study on how faculty engage in athletics issues. The January 11 session features Knight Commission Executive Director Amy Perko and University of Michigan Associate Professor Janet Lawrence, who conducted a study showing a general sense of disenfranchisement among faculty in athletics matters.

The December 13 OMG call maintained the momentum on reform, according to University of Memphis President and OMG Chair Shirley Raines. In addition to Raines, Likins and Zimpher, other presidents on the OMG are Walt Harrison of the University of Hartford, University of North Carolina Chancellor James Moeser and Towson University’s Bob Caret.

“The Oversight and Monitoring Group remains energized about keeping the Task Force and its many recommendations at the forefront of the Division I agenda,” she said. “In many ways, the Task Force report is a guideline for campus reform – our charge is to maintain that momentum.”