A newly adopted strategic-positioning platform describes Division III as a place to “follow your passions and develop your potential,” within an approach to intercollegiate athletics that combines rigorous academics, competitive sports and an opportunity to pursue other interests.

The platform’s approval is a key step in the Division III Presidents Council’s continuing initiative  to sharpen the division’s identity. The fundamental idea of the initiative is to formalize communications and give Division III members a tool that allows its various constituencies to promote the division more consistently.

The initiative now moves into a new phase of exploring effective ways of communicating those messages and activating the concepts for membership use. Activation can take many forms, ranging from the scheduling of educational or celebratory events to incorporating messaging into existing programs to creating such tools as signage or a slogan.

The Council approved the positioning statement as an internal document that Division III can use as the basis for communicating its distinctive approach to intercollegiate athletics.

Division III leaders plan to begin sharing the platform with the membership during the months before the 2010 NCAA Convention, placing particular emphasis on presenting the platform to the division’s presidents and chancellors.

Attention also will be focused on determining the best ways to activate Division III messages at the conference and campus levels. The division’s leadership is considering establishing a pilot program in selected conferences to explore specific ways of using the positioning platform.

“This strategic-positioning platform is extraordinarily well done,” said Council Chair Paul Trible, following approval of the platform proposed by consultant Jeff Jacobs of the strategic branding and marketing agency Relish. “In its totality, it’s crafted very eloquently, putting forth our values and our vision, and stating what unites us and makes us distinctive.”

The platform is based on research conducted during the past few months by Jacobs, including interviews on campuses with presidents, athletics administrators, coaches, conference commissioners and student-athletes; a survey that generated about 3,000 responses from those constituencies as well as substantial input from faculty; and discussions with various Division III governance groups.

“We are now at an important transition point in our efforts to better identify and communicate our division’s identity,” said Division III Vice President Dan Dutcher.

“The first phase of this effort was focused on research designed to produce a strategic-positioning statement and platform. It reflects the hard work of many people in the membership and the national office and, importantly, the very helpful input received from the Presidents Council, Chancellors and Presidents Advisory Group, Management Council and Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, among other groups.”

The next step is to begin using the platform as the basis for explaining Division III’s values “in a way that allows people to understand why we do what we do,” Jacobs suggested.

“Imagine you are a president at a booster dinner, or an athletics director about to interview a coach, or a coach who is walking a student-athlete around for a campus tour. Imagine you are a faculty athletics representative having a discussion with a faculty member on campus, or a sports information director talking to the media about an upcoming event,” he said.

“If all of these people in all of these situations are familiar with the strategic-positioning platform and speak about Division III from this platform, then all begin to emphasize certain things about the division. Over the long term, what happens is that you’ll move perceptions, you will nullify misconceptions and people will begin to better understand who you are as a division because you begin speaking with one voice and repeating the appropriate themes.”

Offering a specific example, Jacobs said persistent promotion of the values listed in the positioning statement over time should move audiences beyond describing Division III simply as the “no-athletics-scholarship division.”

“The whole idea to give Division III’s institutions and all of its internal constituencies a tool to promote the division – and to speak literally and figuratively from the same page,” he said.

The identity initiative will be a primary focus of next January’s NCAA Convention in Atlanta, serving as a natural kickoff for promotional activities that could occur during 2010 and beyond.