The Division I Academic Cabinet will review recommendations from the Working Group to Review Issues Related to Academic Risk and consider making additional comments on legislation still alive in the 2008-09 cycle at its meeting in Indianapolis February 2-3.

Sidney McPhee, chair of the working group and president at Middle Tennessee State, will present the working group’s suggestions to the cabinet, including the creation of a voluntary management system that would, among other uses, help institutions identify, assess and mitigate an individual student-athlete’s graduation barriers. The program also could be used to conduct program evaluations for academic-support service providers to gauge the effectiveness of campus student-athlete support programming. Called “FLAG” (Facilitating Learning and Achieving Graduation), the system will be Web-based and part of a process that already exists.

The cabinet is expected to act on the recommendations.

The group will also continue its review of legislation in the 2008-09 cycle, including Proposal No. 2008-32-B, which would allow for student-athletes to take a limited number of nontraditional courses from their own institution to count toward full-time enrollment. The cabinet is also expected to review Proposal Nos. 2008-75 and 2008-77, which are designed to assist in collecting data about incoming freshmen and transfer student-athletes.

Cabinet members also will use this session to meet with representatives from the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics, as they do each February.