A recent survey strongly confirms Division III members' support for treating student-athletes like other students -- academically and otherwise -- and for such philosophies as sport equity and institutional autonomy.

But members responding to the survey indicate they continue to grapple with the practicalities of managing growth and providing access to championships and a broad range of sports, setting the stage for discussions in coming months to uncover the best ways to deal with those issues.

An interim report of results from the "Future of Division III -- Phase II" survey was mailed this week to chief executive officers and other individuals (including student-athlete advisory committee liaisons) at member institutions, as well as to members of "virtual focus groups" -- conference-based e-mail discussion groups moderated by members of the Division III Management Council and including CEOs, athletics administrators, faculty athletics representatives, student-athletes and coaches.

The focus groups have been asked to review the results, discuss them with colleagues, offer opinions about which issues seem most important and suggest which should receive the highest priority. In January, that discussion will be expanded to include the entire membership during a forum at the NCAA Convention.

As of November 9, when the interim report was compiled, exactly 75 percent of Division III institutions had responded to the survey, which solicited an institutional response (involving CEOs and other campus constituencies) to 31 detailed questions. The questions focused on seven subject areas: management of growth; access to championships and other postseason opportunities; sport and program equity; academic success of student-athletes; cultural and campus integration; and conference affiliation.

More responses have been received from institutions since November 9, and NCAA staff researchers believe the final response rate will be about 80 percent. All responses will be included in a final report of the survey, which will be available before the Convention forum.

"I think that's a really good response," said Phillip Stone, president of Bridgewater College (Virginia) and chair of the Division III Presidents Council, who also chairs the Future of Division III -- Phase II Oversight Group. "Because it was a very detailed survey, and almost necessarily had to have the involvement of at least the CEO and the athletics director to be an institutional response, I think it's an outstanding response, and I'm very gratified by it. I feel like we can really use the information, and rely on it."

The survey clearly indicates continuing support for the basic philosophies that institutions agree to abide by as Division III members.

"The majority strongly endorsed and affirmed an emphasis on academics in our institutions; we see the value of that and we all agree on that," Stone said. "Some of the responses were overwhelming in terms of support for the values we've thought were crucial to the Division III way of business. That's gratifying that we are not too split or so fragmented that we don't have a sense of common purpose.

"As we look at the details, we'll try to see if there is anything that invites us to go back to the membership and ask, do you want us to go in this direction or that direction?"

Although other survey results indicate differences among members about how to deal with a variety of practical matters, they also seem to indicate significant support for at least maintaining the current Division III structure, continuing to provide at-large access to championships and providing current levels of NCAA services.

"I thought the survey responses reflected a general satisfaction with the balance we've come to in Division III -- the balance of athletics and academics, the way we handle championships, and the priorities and use of our resources," Stone said. "If we really had a big disconnect between the governing councils and the membership, that would be troubling, because it would mean we have a huge job to work on that.

"It means we can look at the survey responses in specificity to see whether they suggest areas where we ought to move further and become stronger."

Survey report

The virtual focus groups will have the first opportunity during the next few weeks to review survey results and suggest those specifics.

The report they are reviewing provides detailed information about institutions' responses to questions about philosophical bases of Division III, as well as practical application of those philosophies. In several instances, they will see strong support for aspects of the Division III philosophy, but also indications that institutions are struggling to agree on the best ways to address such nettlesome questions as whether to aggressively limit membership growth.

The areas of strong agreement probably won't come as any surprise, but Stone said the Oversight Group believed it was important to ask the questions anyway.

"Take, for example, the endorsement of the value of student-athletes being like other students in their profile and characteristics," he said. "To endorse that in some ways states the obvious -- we would have predicted it, and we on the Councils hoped that would be the case -- but we always need to make sure that there is no disconnect, that we do have a handle on how we all feel about things. So even to get that ratified is worth a lot."

That information also helps give context to the upcoming discussions about specific actions that could be pursued to support those philosophies, especially as the membership attempts to prioritize areas where such actions may be needed, said Eric M. Hartung, NCAA associate director of research, who supervised administration of the survey.

"The objective of the philosophical basis portion was to construct a prompt that not only would allow the respondent to identify their level of support for a philosophical statement, but also to help the Oversight Group prioritize the issue within the topic area and across all topic areas," he said, referring to the seven topics addressed by the survey.

That portion of the survey also asks institutions to indicate who -- the NCAA, conferences or institutions -- should address each of those philosophical bases. In some areas -- notably, maximizing the number and variety of athletics opportunities for students, ensuring academic success of student-athletes and ensuring that athletics is an integral part of the educational experience -- respondents suggest that institutions should take the lead in addressing those efforts.

The responses are consistent with support expressed elsewhere in the survey for institutional autonomy, and may suggest areas where institutions and conferences could lead initiatives to specifically address those issues.

As for practical applications, the survey indicates broad support for maintaining current services provided by the NCAA, even if dues increases are needed to do so; for maintaining and establishing Division III initiatives to enhance opportunities for minority student-athletes, coaches and staff; and for using widely accepted criteria such as graduation rates and college grade-point averages to monitor academic performance of student-athletes.

Preparing for interpretation

But other proposed applications prompted indecision, such as the question of whether to aggressively limit membership growth. The largest percentages of respondents indicated they only "somewhat support" (21.9 percent) or "somewhat oppose" (27.3 percent) doing so.

Even in at least one case where respondents indicated support for the status quo -- maintaining the current Division III structure -- there apparently remains noteworthy interest in at least considering creating subdivisions. More than a third of respondents indicated varying levels of support for subdivision.

The virtual focus groups will take the first swing at interpreting what those responses mean, but those discussions mostly are intended to be a preliminary step toward discussion of the survey by the full membership during the Convention forum, said Suzanne Coffey, director of athletics at Bates College and chair of the Division III Management Council.

"I'm particularly interested in hearing from the VFGs how they think we ought to ask the questions at the forum. Those practical applications where the membership is widely dispersed from 'strongly support' to 'strongly oppose' are areas we have to flesh out, and I hope we'll flesh those out at the forum at the Convention. Meanwhile, the focus groups can assist us in framing the way we ask the questions at the forum.

"It doesn't preclude them from saying to us outright, on a particular question, this is what we think the membership was saying in distributing their responses. But it does seem to me that the major task at hand is preparation for full engagement with the full membership, so the VFGs need to help us understand how to frame that."

But the virtual focus groups also can play a role in achieving a better understanding of the survey itself.

"The VFGs are critically helpful in telling us how they understood a particular question, and how that affected the answer," Coffey said. That, in fact, is one of several tools that will be employed to better understand why institutions responded in the ways they did.

Another tool is ongoing analysis of the responses by the NCAA research staff, which will apply a variety of statistical data obtainable from sources other than the survey to further identify how various types of institutions responded. Those include institutional demographics, such as graduation rates, enrollment and cost of attendance; academic selectivity, including percentages of applicants accepted and enrolled at institutions; and athletics program demographics, including total number of teams and student-athletes, number of male and female student-athletes, and proportion of student-athletes to the overall student body.

Hartung points out that even those analyses will not readily answer questions about which actions the entire membership -- or segments of that membership -- believe should be pursued. Ultimately, responses to the survey are subject to interpretation.

"We're not saying this gives us answers," he said. "It gives us direction."

Stone believes the membership itself will have to determine how to use that information during its discussions before, at and after the Convention.

"I strongly believe, and I know my colleagues on the Oversight Group and the Presidents Council share this view, that we must be faithful to the representative form of governance we have, and that we truly check in with the membership to see how it stands on values and priorities. That's what should dictate where we go in the future; not people in leadership positions reading tea leaves or following biases and, even though they mean well, not representing the membership.

"The fact that we've asked lots of very good questions about values and programs and use of resources, and gotten such a tremendous response, means we ought to have some real credibility when we move to the next step. That will be the conversations at the Convention, where we'll get even more guidance from people saying, this is what the data mean to me and this is how I'd interpret them. We'll then have more to build on.

"Then, as we come out with affirmations, or proposed legislation, if any, we can feel there's credibility because we've gone through the right process, and let the membership dictate the direction of Division III."

The results will be updated before the Convention to include all respondents, and also can be obtained at that Web location.