Jan 15, 2010 7:10:23 AM

ATLANTA − Each year around the time of the NCAA Convention, Georgana Taggart becomes a familiar face and, at the same time, a behind-the-scenes operator.

Her day job is chair of the department of legal studies at the College of Mount Saint Joseph's, but her NCAA role – one she has filled since the 2000 Convention in Indianapolis – is Division III parliamentarian.

Taggart was familiar with parliamentary procedure through her legal experiences, but she hadn't filled a parliamentarian role before Ralph McBride of what is now the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference left the Division III position after the 1999 Convention. Since 2000 (except for last year, when she was ill), Taggart has been a fixture at the head table of every Division III business session.

Her business-session role is important, of course, but she said it's not the core of the job.

"Most of the work is not really at the meeting," she said. "I've had to rule a couple of times on matters like whether something was out-of-order, but most of the work is behind the scenes, such as when I help the Division III staff draft a report that's called the ‘mootnicity report.' Alan Chapman coined that term."

Former NCAA parliamentarian Chapman, who died in 2007, wrote the book on NCAA legislative procedure – including the whimsically named "mootnicity reports." Those reports are a series of if/then scenarios that guide administrators through what might happen based on what legislation is approved and when it is approved. The process can be complicated, so much so that it often involves senior staff (including Division III Vice President Dan Dutcher, whom Taggart called "quite a good parliamentarian" in his own right).

If such work is properly tended to, then the ways of parliamentary procedure sort things out in an orderly way so that all interests, including those of the minority, are honored.

There are rare occasions when simple good judgment must be applied, such as the year when a second sponsoring conference withdrew its sponsorship of a piece of Division III legislation. The rule required "two sponsoring conferences," but when one opted out, Taggart said the question became: "What does that mean?" The ruling was that the legislation continued to be sponsored, but with a notation that future legislation must continually be sponsored by two conferences, or the requisite number of institutions, up to the time of consideration.

Taggart said that represents the essence of the position.

"The purpose of the parliamentarian is not to limit discussion," she said, "or be a wet blanket but to help people do what they want to do in an orderly fashion."