National Collegiate Athletic Association

The NCAA News - News and Features

June 16, 1997

I cabinet establishes structure to handle workload

The Division I Academic/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet spent the bulk of its first meeting reviewing the responsibilities that have been assigned to it and creating a structure to accomplish the work previously assigned to seven committees.

In the June 3-4 meeting in Philadelphia, the 34-person cabinet received orientation material and reviewed issues referred to it from the NCAA Council, Division I Management Council and Division I Board of Directors and the 1997 NCAA Convention.

Most of the two-day meeting, however, was devoted to reviewing reports from committees that will cease to exist in the new structure, including the Academic Requirements Committee, Two-Year College Relations Committee, Recruiting Committee, Eligibility Committee, Interpretations Committee, Legislative Review Committee and Special Committee on Graduation-Rates Disclosure.

After lengthy discussion regarding the volume of work from these committees, including hearing appeals in the area of initial-eligibility waivers, satisfactory-progress waivers, eligibility waivers and other administrative waivers, the cabinet members agreed to create six subcommittees to accommodate the workload. The subcommittees include ones for eligibility or student-athlete violations, amateurism and agents, recruiting, interpretations and legislative review, academics/initial-eligibility issues, and academics/continuing-eligibility issues.

The cabinet also appointed members to the 19-person Division I Initial-Eligibility Waivers Committee. The new committee, which reports directly to the cabinet, will include Robert H. Aronson, University of Washington; Race Bergman, Middle Tennessee State University; Susan A. Berner, Campbell University; Patrick Carter, Southwestern Athletic Conference; Leon J. Gilbert, California State University, Fullerton; Kim Hollins, Boston College; Carol Iwaoka, Big Ten Conference, David E. Land, Ball State University; Colleen Lim, Yale University; E. James McCloskey, University of Florida; Noreen P. Morris, Conference USA; Carolyn O'Connell, Loyola University (Illinois); Marilyn A. Parker, Monmouth University (New Jersey); David Raske, California State University, Sacramento; Bill Reeves, University of Texas at Arlington; Sandra Sapone, Manhattan College; Carl Settergren, University of Missouri, Columbia; Sandra Williamson, University of Northern Iowa; and James R. Wyatt, Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.

In other business, the cabinet:

  • Will ask the Division I Management Council to change the name of the Financial Aid and Amateurism Committee to Financial Aid Committee to reflect the move of amateurism issues to the cabinet subcommittee on amateurism and agents.

  • Discussed the need for consistency in the way initial-eligibility, satisfactory-progress and eligibility appeals are heard and recommended that the current Satisfactory-Progress Waiver Committee be continued as a special committee until a new standing committee can be created.

  • Will make a similar request for the current core-course review group and will ask both the Divisions I and II Management Councils to create a standing common committee to review and make consistent core-course definitions common to both divisions.

  • Agreed to continue its discussion of renaming the eligibility function performed by the enforcement and eligibility staff to something that can be better understood by the general public (for example, student-athlete violations).

  • Agreed to meet June 30 for a one-day orientation in each of the six subcommittee areas.