The Division I Board of Directors used its October 28 meeting in Indianapolis to begin implementing the academic-reform structure it adopted last spring.

The academic-reform package is predicated on strengthened initial-eligibility standards and progress-toward-degree requirements that went into effect for the entering class of 2003. Institutions are then held accountable to those standards through a disincentives system that employs an Academic Progress Rate (APR) to identify and penalize academically under-performing teams.

The October 28 Board meeting included a presentation from the Committee on Academic Performance, the Board-appointed group charged with recommending cut points in the APR under which teams would be subject to contemporaneous and historically based penalties.

Contemporaneous penalties restrict an institution's ability to re-award a scholarship previously given to a student-athlete who left the institution and would not have been academically eligible had he or she returned. Those will begin being assessed in fall 2005 based on 2004-05 APR data.

Historically based penalties will be assessed for academic failure over time, and may include scholarship reductions, recruiting limitations and ineligibility for NCAA team postseason or preseason competition, including bowl games and NCAA championships. The most extreme cases could result in restricted membership status. Data collection for the historically based penalties began with the 2003-04 academic year and will result in completion of the four-year APR in fall 2007. Penalties would begin being assessed in 2007-08.

With that structure in place, what remains is for the Board to set the cut points in the APR, particularly for the contemporaneous penalties, since they go into effect next year. Board members used this meeting only to discuss the process and agreed to decide on formal cut points at their January session. January also is when letters will be sent to institutions informing them how they would have fared under the new program based on last year's academic performance. The goal is to encourage them to take corrective action before contemporaneous penalties are applied.

University of Hartford President Walter Harrison, who chairs the Committee on Academic Performance (CAP), said that 2003-04 APR notification -- upon which no penalties will be assessed -- nonetheless will serve as the appropriate warning for teams headed in the wrong direction academically. He also said his committee looked at the contemporaneous penalties in that same warning capacity with regard to the more stringent historically based penalties.

"The contemporaneous penalties are designed to serve as warnings and the historical penalties are the ones that carry the severe hit," he told the Board.

Harrison's comments came after the Board's initial reaction to an example from the CAP that some Board members thought wasn't strong enough. The CAP had discussed drawing the cut point in the APR that projects to less than a 50 percent graduation rate, then capping the contemporaneous penalties to no more than 5 percent of the maximum team financial aid limits for each sport. That would mean no more than four contemporaneous penalties per year in football and no more than one in men's basketball. Board members looking to make a bigger impression with academic reform thought that proposal didn't go far enough.

Others, however, emphasized the bigger picture of using the historically based penalties to change behavior of consistent violators. One Board member said, "If you remember that larger context, we need to think of the contemporaneous penalties as a squeeze, not as a hammer. You need to leave room for the additional historically based penalties."

NCAA President Myles Brand also said Harrison's committee was not looking to penalize the most egregious cases through contemporaneous penalties alone. "These penalties are designed more to serve as shots across the bow," he said. Brand also noted -- as a point of comparison -- that while the loss of a scholarship in basketball might be viewed as too lenient by some, it is not viewed as lenient when it is applied in an infractions case. "You have to keep that context in mind when considering what the appropriate sanctions are," he said.

Harrison said the CAP also thought about -- but recommended against -- establishing the cut point as an identified lower percentage of the cohort, such as the bottom 10 or 15 percent. While that might simplify the cut point, Harrison said it does not accomplish what the system is intended to do.

"The idea is to give schools warning and allow for improvement," Harrison said. "If you always have a bottom percentage, someone always has to be in that bottom percentage. We'd rather go at it by determining the level at which academic performance is not acceptable and encourage teams to exceed that."

Another issue facing the CAP and the Board is how to translate the APR into a measurement people can understand. That's why the CAP recommended using the APR to project a team's graduation rate, because the latter metric is familiar. Board members pointed out, though, that the current federally mandated rate is flawed because it does not take transfers in good academic standing into account. CAP members noted that the NCAA will have its Graduation Success Rate, which does account for transfers, ready by next summer, but that it will be a limited data set at first. Other Board members said the APR may not even need to be tied to graduation rates to make sense; that it could be used similar to an SAT or ACT score, which also has no relationship with other measurements.

Such complexities prompted the Board to delay formal recommendations on APR cut points until January, after the CAP has had more time to assess the data and address the philosophical and practical implications of setting a bar.

Harrison said the challenges are many.

"We have to decide how to identify the appropriate teams, whether to cap the number of contemporaneous penalties that can be assessed and how contemporaneous penalties affect teams with small squad sizes," he said. "Do you adopt a philosophy in which you assess a high number of contemporaneous penalties to affect behavior, or do you wait for the historically based penalties to have the desired impact? Those are just some of the issues we have to address."

Summer financial aid

In addition to academic reform, the Board also discussed the pool of prospective student-athletes who would be eligible to participate in a recently approved summer financial aid program designed to give prospects an early jump on acclimating academically into the institution. A five-year pilot program is under way in basketball, but the Board has supported the measure for all sports and is now trying to define the criteria to determine the participants.

The original membership proposal that provided the impetus for the legislation the Board approved in August suggested that the participant pool be predicated on whether the prospect was judged to be academically "at risk." Board members have argued, though, that the term could be interpreted differently and in the end should not be the driving force behind the legislation.

Instead, Board members supported providing institutions the autonomy to develop specific, nonathletically related criteria for use in identifying prospects who would benefit from summer enrollment before their first full-time academic year. The Board also warned that while institutions would have that autonomy, there is an expectation that the focus of the program remain an academic one, not as a way to establish another opportunity for "voluntary" workouts or practices.

University of Dayton President Dan Curran, who chaired the four-person working group the Board appointed to develop recommendations, said the group favored the flexibility and discretion such autonomy provides institutions to be attentive to their own institutional mission. In the initial implementation phase, the Board noted that it would continue to monitor the program to ensure its desired effect.

Curran also said his group acknowledged the cost concerns some say would be associated with the program, but he noted that since the measure is permissive legislation, institutions are not required to provide such aid. The group also discussed the fact the provision of summer aid should more appropriately be viewed as a partial "cost shift" rather than a new expense, with institutions providing aid early in the student-athlete's career rather than at the end, assuming the aid is limited to five summers.

Recruiting culture

The Board also dealt with some follow-up items from its adoption of six emergency-legislation proposals in August that place additional parameters around official visits in recruiting. One of the proposals requires institutions to revise or establish official-visit policies applying to prospects, student hosts, coaches and other athletics administrators, and have those policies signed by the CEO and on file at the institution's conference office by December 1.

The policies must include or specifically address:

• A description of the educational component of a visit (for example, meeting with advisors, review of academic expectations, etc.).

• Compliance forms and receipt policies used for prospects and student hosts.

• Participation of head coaches to communicate standards and policies.

• No underage use of alcohol.

• No use of drugs or sex as a recruiting device.

• No activity that violates criminal law.

• No gambling/gaming activities.

• No use of strippers or gentlemen's clubs or the equivalent.

• Applicable institutional sanctions, including a provision for an annual report of violations to the conference office (to the NCAA in the case of independents).

Board members emphasized that the development of policies relies on institutions to define appropriate standards of behavior and to assure appropriate sanctions for abuses.

The Board intends for the process to provide each institution's CEO an opportunity to evaluate whether institutional practices properly balance the institution's and the student's mutual interests, and whether they integrate the academic mission and athletics participation.

The Board also revisited the culture of entitlement and celebrity surrounding official visits that the proposals were designed to address. While the adoption of more stringent legislation provides institutions with guidelines about behaviors, Board members agreed that all presidents must add a leadership element if the culture change is to occur as intended.

For example, Recruiting Task Force Chair David Berst told the Board that recent questions directed to the NCAA membership services staff in the wake of the official-visit legislation would appear to indicate more interest in the status quo than in a culture change. Some of those questions that illustrate the current focus on competitive equity in recruiting include whether it is permissible to put streamers and decorations in a recruit's hotel room, or whether a recruit's name may be on cookies -- the argument being that food isn't a recruiting material or presentation. Just before the Board meeting in fact, staff received an inquiry about the possibility of using a life-size greeting card.

"Certainly, these questions themselves are not the problem," Berst said, "but they are indicative of the bigger issue, which is the difficulty of many to change their mind set regarding official visits. While the membership services staff can say no, that does not bring about the desired culture shift and membership buy-in."

Board members unanimously reiterated their support for changing the celebrity environment surrounding official visits. Board Chair Robert Hemenway in fact invoked his own "golden rule" when it comes to official visits. He urged presidents to support an environment in which athletics administrators "do unto athletics recruits as you would to academic recruits."

Two legislative proposals from the Recruiting Task Force's legislative package are still in the cycle. One reduces the number of official visits from five to four, and the other allows institutions to pay airfare for one parent or legal guardian to accompany the prospect on an official visit. The Board will have a chance to act on those measures in April.

Other highlights

Division I Board of Directors
October 28/Indianapolis

• Directed NCAA staff to review the Division I-A membership standards in the context of how they relate to the NCAA strategic plan and prepare a report for further discussion in January. Board members also asked staff to compile data regarding the criterion that requires Division I-A institutions to average at least 15,000 in attendance for football, a requirement that has raised concern within some segments of the membership.

• Supported the concept of enhancements in Division I-AA football, acknowledging that the examination of Division I-A membership standards must be done in conjunction with Division I-AA standards. Board members indicated an interest in seeing legislation adopted that would permit a Division I-A institution to count a qualified I-AA team as one of the five required home games needed to meet the Division I-A membership standards, as well as to qualify for bowl eligibility. Board members also indicated an interest in supporting enhancements in the next biannual budget cycle (subject to final review by the Board and the Division I Budget Committee).