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Dashboards could help steer decisions

Division III chancellors and presidents heard more about an initiative that could help inform athletics budget decisions at a CEO luncheon on Friday.

If approved later this spring, data from the most recent Division III revenues and expenses report released earlier this month could be organized into “dashboard indicators” that would allow presidents to compare their own athletics spending habits with peers.

Schools could request aggregate data from their conference or other select group (individual school reports would remain confidential). The dashboard indicators include public/private, football sponsorship, total number of sports sponsored, federal graduation rates, proportion of student-athletes in the student body, and the proportion of total athletics expenses to the institutional budget, among others.

Divisions I and II already employ a dashboard approach from data that schools are required to submit annually. The Division III program would be voluntary.

The Division III Presidents Council has asked the Strategic Planning and Finance Committee to draft a proposal for the Council by April. A pilot could be developed and distributed as early as this fall with an official launch possible by spring 2012.

Incoming Presidents Council vice chair Jim Schmotter from Western Connecticut State said when the idea was first introduced to the Council in October that dashboards would be a welcome resource.

“Given the diversity and variety of institutions in Division III, some sort of dashboard tool would really help make discussions of a comparison nature more factual than anecdotal,” he said.