In a further commitment to student-athlete academic success, the Patriot League Council of Presidents revised the conference’s academic index for student-athlete entering league schools in the fall of 2009.

The changes, the first since the index was implemented in the late 1980s, are the result of a year-long review of the index. The adjustments establish a “floor” academic profile for student-athletes to be considered for enrollment at Patriot League institutions, create “admissions bands” for football and men’s and women’s basketball and include transfer student-athletes into the academic index calculation.

The index formula uses test scores and high school grades to create a profile of student-athletes that are academically representative of the institution. The changes also de-emphasize a student-athlete’s rank in class, a metric that is provided on transcripts more and more infrequently because of the differences between high schools.

While the changes don’t make the academic index more rigorous, Patriot League Executive Director Carolyn Schlie Femovich (left) said, they do make it stronger and more contemporary.

Both Femovich and Bucknell Athletics Director John Hardt said the common floor was a key element of the change.

“Because our schools are very similar in terms of academic quality, everybody should have access to the same pool,” Femovich said. “This supports our principles of academic quality and competitive equity.”

The bands in football and men’s and women’s basketball are in sports that attract the greatest amount of scrutiny at both the institutional and national level, Femovich said.

“We just want to make sure that there’s a secondary measure for balancing the class,” she said. “The bands imply make sure the student-athletes are allocated across the range, like a typical curve.”

The changes will also provide for more consistency from institution to institution, Hardt said, which will create a more level playing field and strengthen the league and its member institutions in the classroom and in competition.

The Patriot League academic index was first created to be a way to measure the academic qualifications of student-athletes in relation to the student body. It ensures that institutions follow a core league principle that student-athletes should be representative of the general student body from the time they are admitted to an institution until the time they graduate.

Hardt, who chairs the league’s committee on athletics administration, said the index helps institutions produce an incoming class of student-athletes that are as prepared for the academic challenge of Patriot League institutions as the rest of the student body.

“Not only does it help to strengthen each of our institutions, but it also allows our coaches and admissions personnel to act responsibly in terms of making sure the incoming student-athletes will be prepared to succeed academically once they arrive on campus,” Hardt said.

While the league might be a grouping based on athletics, the Patriot League is made up of academic institutions that believe athletics is a part of the overall educational experience, Femovich said.

“The development of the individual is our highest priority. We believe our role should be in developing the whole person using athletics,” she said. “We believe the whole person is extremely important.”

Michelle Brutlag Hosick can be reached at mhosick@ncaa.org.