National Collegiate Athletic Association
NCAA News Archive - 2007
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CAP recommends practice penalties, resource program
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By Michelle Brutlag Hosick
The NCAA News
The NCAA News
ORLANDO, Florida — The Committee on Academic Performance developed a tiered structure at its January 4-5 meeting for institutions facing the second level of historically based penalties. The structure, which the Board of Directors approved January 8, includes a combination of penalties and also takes team improvement into consideration.
Teams with Academic Progress Rates below 900 that meet an improvement standard will be subject in their second year of historically based penalties to a reduction of practice time by four hours per week during the championship season and either an automatic reduction of scholarships by 5 percent (deducted from the total aid awarded) or the total, uncapped contemporaneous penalties (deducted from the total allowable aid), whichever is greater. The practice-time reduction allows institutions that meet the improvement standard the flexibility to spread the reduction throughout the week.
Teams that do not meet the improvement standard would be required to reduce their scholarships by 10 percent of the total aid awarded or the total, uncapped contemporaneous penalties (deducted from the total allowable aid), whichever is greater, and reduce their weekly practice time by four hours all on the same day, essentially requiring an additional day off of practice replaced with academic-support activities. Institutions must document how the practice time is replaced.
Improvement will be defined through a statistical analysis that takes into account squad-size differences that impact observed APR variations (for example, a 20-point jump in a football team’s APR is more meaningful than the same increase for a smaller squad), as well as the difference between a penalized team’s APR and the penalty benchmarks. The same improvement standard was previously approved for identifying teams subject to all stages of historically based penalties.
The committee also recommended to the Board a supplemental support program for teams that would draw from the Division I Academic Enhancement Fund.
To be eligible for the supplemental fund, an institution would have to submit a proposal for programs that would decrease barriers to retention and progress-toward-degree.
Potential guidelines for the improvement program could include requiring a thorough assessment of an institution’s particular challenges to academic success, encouraging collaboration with nonathletics units on campus to maximize resources, requiring schools to demonstrate how the program would be sustained and requiring annual reports outlining progress. The institution’s faculty athletics representative probably would be required to review and sign the grant inquiry, application and subsequent evaluation.
The improvement program is important because, though the Academic Progress Rate is a team-based metric, data show a strong correlation between resource-challenged institutions and schools with multiple teams reporting low APR scores.
In other business, the CAP discussed the possibility of APR penalties following coaches if they leave an institution, an idea that originated with the working group that predated the CAP. After further review, however, committee members decided that the design complexities and challenges of creating an accurate, fair and consistent method of applying the penalties would have higher costs than returns. The committee will continue to examine the possibility of creating a cumulative APR that would be assigned to an individual coach.
January 4-5/Orlando, Florida
Teams with Academic Progress Rates below 900 that meet an improvement standard will be subject in their second year of historically based penalties to a reduction of practice time by four hours per week during the championship season and either an automatic reduction of scholarships by 5 percent (deducted from the total aid awarded) or the total, uncapped contemporaneous penalties (deducted from the total allowable aid), whichever is greater. The practice-time reduction allows institutions that meet the improvement standard the flexibility to spread the reduction throughout the week.
Teams that do not meet the improvement standard would be required to reduce their scholarships by 10 percent of the total aid awarded or the total, uncapped contemporaneous penalties (deducted from the total allowable aid), whichever is greater, and reduce their weekly practice time by four hours all on the same day, essentially requiring an additional day off of practice replaced with academic-support activities. Institutions must document how the practice time is replaced.
Improvement will be defined through a statistical analysis that takes into account squad-size differences that impact observed APR variations (for example, a 20-point jump in a football team’s APR is more meaningful than the same increase for a smaller squad), as well as the difference between a penalized team’s APR and the penalty benchmarks. The same improvement standard was previously approved for identifying teams subject to all stages of historically based penalties.
The committee also recommended to the Board a supplemental support program for teams that would draw from the Division I Academic Enhancement Fund.
To be eligible for the supplemental fund, an institution would have to submit a proposal for programs that would decrease barriers to retention and progress-toward-degree.
Potential guidelines for the improvement program could include requiring a thorough assessment of an institution’s particular challenges to academic success, encouraging collaboration with nonathletics units on campus to maximize resources, requiring schools to demonstrate how the program would be sustained and requiring annual reports outlining progress. The institution’s faculty athletics representative probably would be required to review and sign the grant inquiry, application and subsequent evaluation.
The improvement program is important because, though the Academic Progress Rate is a team-based metric, data show a strong correlation between resource-challenged institutions and schools with multiple teams reporting low APR scores.
In other business, the CAP discussed the possibility of APR penalties following coaches if they leave an institution, an idea that originated with the working group that predated the CAP. After further review, however, committee members decided that the design complexities and challenges of creating an accurate, fair and consistent method of applying the penalties would have higher costs than returns. The committee will continue to examine the possibility of creating a cumulative APR that would be assigned to an individual coach.
Other highlights
Committee on Academic Performance
January 4-5/Orlando, Florida
- Began discussing the possibility of providing nonfinancial rewards to coaches whose teams are performing at a high level academically. CAP members believe such incentives might inspire coaches to produce greater academic results. They also want a nonfinancial requisite to the sanctions (scholarship reductions) assessed to under-performing squads.
- Reviewed Graduation Success Rate data, noting the overall increase of one percentage point and increases within many individual sports, including both men’s and women’s basketball.
- Eliminated from the APR cohort any sixth-year students with no eligibility remaining but receiving aid. Those students can earn the delayed graduation point, effective with the 2006-07 data pool. The change will not be applied retroactively.
- Heard from a group working with historically black colleges and universities created to actively address the number of HBCUs that may be subject to penalties once the squad-size adjustment is eliminated for 2007-08. The group discussed the specific characteristics of HBCUs, including student body resource level, athletics department resource level and institutional resource level and discussed several possibilities for providing assistance to the institutions, including developing a best-practices document and taking steps to improve public perception.
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