The Division II Academic Requirements Committee wants legislation for the 2011 Convention that would make it more difficult for student-athletes who have been suspended from their teams to transfer to another school and be immediately eligible.

The proposal developed at the ARC’s recent meeting in Indianapolis would expand existing legislation regarding players who have been dismissed from school for disciplinary reasons to include student-athletes who have been kicked off of their teams but may still be enrolled.

Current legislation requires transfers under a disciplinary suspension to serve a year in residence before being eligible to compete at the new institution. The rule does not apply, though, when a student is suspended for disciplinary reasons from the team.

Under the proposal, student-athletes who transfer while serving a disciplinary suspension from either the school or the team would be held to the same year-of-residence standard. In addition, those transfers would have to be academically eligible had they remained at the institution.

“The committee unanimously agreed that recruiting and playing these types of student-athletes does not conform to the Division II platform,” said committee chair Paul Leidig, the faculty athletics representative at Grand Valley State. “If for whatever reason someone is not eligible to compete at their current institution, then they should not be able to transfer to a Division II school and compete immediately.

 “We already have legislation dealing with academic eligibility upon transfer, so we simply wanted to broaden it to include disciplinary suspension.”

Committee member Kevin Schriver said the group also wanted to assure that the year in residence not only serve as a chance for the student-athlete to prove his or her commitment to academics but also give the new school time to evaluate and correct the behavior that brought on the suspension in the first place.

“We want to set up a process by which the behavior is either going to be corrected or at least require the student to serve a penalty for that behavior before being able to play at the new school,” said Schriver, who is the faculty athletics representative at Southwest Baptist.

Both Schriver and Leidig said the only hesitation from the committee was whether the proposal would unfairly affect students who were caught in circumstances beyond their control.

“I don’t think many people in Division II would say that we should broaden the minimum eligibility requirements just to give students who may not warrant it a ‘second chance,’ ” Leidig said.

Division II Vice President Mike Racy said while second chances are well and good, the issue is the process by which student-athletes demonstrate their commitment to earning a college degree.

“Requiring a year in residence for this purpose would appear to be a reasonable approach,” he said. “I don’t believe a rule like this would intrude upon that ‘second-chance’ philosophy.”

Racy said the legislation would have to be crafted to ensure that the rule applies only to disciplinary situations, violations of team rules or criminal cases and not unfairly to student-athletes who are victims of “run-offs” or are released from teams because their skills aren’t up to a coach’s expectations.

A couple of non-Academic Requirements Committee members agreed with that assessment. Jim Johnson, commissioner of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, said Division II should be a safe harbor for student-athletes who perhaps over-estimated their ability to succeed athletically at the Division I level.

“Certainly we ought to have rules in Division II that allow for that kind of a second chance,” Johnson said. “But not only should these student-athletes be academically eligible and on track to pursue a degree when they transfer, they also ought to be in good standing otherwise. We shouldn’t be a home for student-athletes who make serious mistakes and then just walk away from them without some repercussion.”

Johnson noted an MIAA policy adopted several years ago for all sports that requires transfers from one league school to another to serve a year in residence, regardless of their academic standing. Those transfers can still practice with the team and receive athletics aid, however, principles that would apply to the Academic Requirements Committee proposal as well.

Management Council chair Tim Selgo, athletics director at Grand Valley State, said schools should recruit suspended students with caution since they often present off-the-field issues for administrators to address, which could be a distraction for the team.

“It could be self-defeating at some point,” Selgo said.

If the committee’s proposal is moved through the Division II governance structure and adopted at the 2011 Convention, its effective date would be August 1, 2011 (for transfer students enrolling at a Division II institution on or after August 1, 2011).