The thread of improving student-athletes’ academic and athletics experiences will weave through Association-wide sessions at the 2010 NCAA Convention in Atlanta.

The event will be January 13-16 at the Hilton Regency Atlanta and Atlanta Marriott Marquis. Registration is now open.

With a new or re-energized emphasis on academics occurring in the governance structure of each division, several sessions will focus on how to help student-athletes achieve academic success, including one highlighting communication strategies within athletics departments.

Carrie Leger, director of the academic-support program at North Carolina State, will moderate the session “Communication Strategies for Effective Academic Support and Advising.” The session is intended to share different ways to communicate with four groups:

• Student-athletes
• Athletics administrators
• Faculty and university administrators
• Coaches

The panelists include Christine Jackson, president of N4A and associate director of academic services at Louisville; Joe Luckey, director of the Center for Academic Athletic Services at Memphis; and Jim Pignataro, associate athletics director for student services at Michigan State.

“Communication is key,” Leger said. “If we don’t have buy-in from coaches and athletics administrators, we lose our ability to do our jobs.”

The panel will share best practices for communicating about academics and the academic performance of student-athletes with all constituents. Leger said that the onset of academic reform over the past five years has increased the need for regular communication between academic support staff and the athletics community.

“We hope people will walk away rethinking their own communication practices and procedures on their campuses, with a reminder of how the stakeholders need to be involved,” Leger said. “If you’re not intentional in developing some systems to do that, you might miss out.”

The academic advising session is just one of several academically themed sessions set for Convention. Another panel will talk about their personal and school philosophies on academic reporting in Division III, which will begin as a pilot program in the spring.

The session is intended to help the membership in its consideration of two core issues:

• The costs/benefits of an academic reporting program
• What policies might grow from the data and how they correlate with the Division III philosophy

Panelists include Dennis Leighton, faculty athletics representative at New England; Michael Miranda, NCAA associate director of research; Debra Townsley, president of Nichols College; and Rick Wells, chancellor at Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

These sessions are just two of nearly two dozen offerings, covering topics such as  sportsmanship, APR, leadership, diversity and inclusion, drug testing, branding, strategic marketing, sustainability, new media, and championship selection.