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Publish date: Jan 4, 2012

Division III to weigh value of academic reporting

Members to offer feedback at Convention issues forum

By Gary Brown
NCAA.org

Now that Division III has a quality collection of data verifying that its student-athletes perform just as well as or better academically than the general student body, members need to decide where to go from here.

They’ll begin doing that at the Division III Issues Forum on Jan. 13 at the NCAA Convention with roundtable discussions about next steps following a two-year academic reporting pilot that provided empirical evidence of what the division’s strategic-positioning platform purported student-athlete academic success to be. In both years of the pilot, student-athlete graduation rates were above those of the general student body.

Jim Schmotter

“The good news is that the pilot data articulate what we’ve previously only been able to assume with regard to academic performance,” said Jim Schmotter, president at Western Connecticut State and current vice chair of the Division III Presidents Council who will begin a one-year term as chair after the Convention. “This research now allows us to say that we deliver on the academic front like we say we do philosophically. What we need to do now is decide about subsequent collection and how to use these data going forward.”

Schmotter is a member of an Academic Reporting Working Group composed of Presidents Council and Management Council members and other subject-matter experts who met in December to develop parameters for those next steps.

They want feedback on a number of issues, including the relevance and utility of the data and the effort it takes to collect them. Schools that participated in the pilot cited several benefits for having the data, but some said the burden of gathering them detracted from their relevance.

Questions at the issues forum will probe those concerns. Primarily, the working group (as well as the two Councils) wants forum attendees to discuss what the academic findings mean for the division, which is in its second full year of an ambitious identity campaign that touts the academic focus and success of student-athletes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why was the pilot conducted?

The Division III Presidents Council authorized the pilot to obtain empirical data to support the portion of the Division III philosophy statement that assures that academic performance of student-athletes is, at a minimum, consistent with that of the general student body. Division III’s identity initiative launched last year, which emphasizes the academic success of its student-athletes and incorporates “comprehensive learning” and “proportion” as key attributes of the Division III student-athlete experience, also prompted the effort.

Why hasn’t Division III done this type of reporting in the past?

The NCAA has collected and reported graduation rates since 1991 for all students (using the six-year federal methodology) and for all student-athletes receiving athletically related financial aid. While Division III students have been included in this process, a separate report on student-athletes in Division III has been absent because the division does not award athletics grants-in-aid. While many Division III institutions and conferences have tracked the academic success of their student-athletes, they have used a variety of criteria (for example, graduation, grade-point average, class rank).

Won’t this type of collection place an undue burden on institutions that already have too much on their plates?

The NCAA already has systems in place to receive academic data required by the federally mandated graduation-rate methodology. While that collection for Division III requires data only on the general student body, it doesn’t take much additional work to distinguish student-athletes in the report. Division III institutions already identify student-athletes in each freshman class through the division’s annual financial aid reporting process. Once institutions establish systems to compile the data and identify student-athletes, the burden of submission in subsequent years should decrease.

Did the pilot program track graduation rates by ethnicity?

Yes, but because of the relatively small size of the cohort, the sub-groups were not large enough to be as statistically sound as they would be in a division-wide report. Thus, those results have not been broadly distributed. However, over time, that information would become available and benefit the division as a whole.

If an annual, division-wide collection of data is approved, would results be used to determine eligibility standards in the way Divisions I and II do?

No, assuming the adoption of the Presidents Council’s proposed amendment to the philosophy statement that emphasizes institutional autonomy in setting those benchmarks (Proposal No. 2012-1).

Why are graduation rates – and not grade-point average and test scores – used as the standard of academic success?

Graduation is a commonly accepted standard for academic success, both inside and outside of the Association, and is already reported annually by member schools.

How does the Division III Academic Success Rate handle transfers?

Tracking transfers is more difficult in Division III than in Divisions I and II because those divisions award athletics aid. The Division III ASR in the pilot includes freshmen in each cohort who left the program in good academic standing. A more robust reporting of all transfers, both into and away from the institution, is being developed.

If results continue to be as good as they were in the pilot – and there’s no reason to believe they wouldn’t be – individual schools and conferences would stand to benefit from their collection and active communication, since this information permits better strategic planning and accountability and helps schools to identify issues with a core tenet of their institutional mission.

In addition, those benefits might mitigate the burden of providing the data.

“If the division sees value in having these data – and I think most of our membership will – then we need to determine the frequency and representativeness with which they are collected,” Schmotter said.

In that vein, forum attendees will be asked to consider whether an annual, division-wide collection is desired or if a voluntary and less-regular approach is more suitable. The annual, division-wide approach would produce more of a census on which the division could firmly hang its academic hat, while the optional approach trades comprehensiveness for being less burdensome on institutional personnel.

“As for the perception of burden,” Schmotter said, “many schools will tell you that they’re already providing these academic data for the federal graduation rates anyway and that distinguishing student-athletes is not burdensome at all. But our division is a diverse one, which means there are schools that may find an additional task to be off-putting, even if the results that task provides could be put to good use.”

To prompt reporting, working group members discussed various incentives that range from honorariums or stipends for institutions or conferences to customized reports that could be provided. They’ll seek feedback from forum participants about those ideas, too.

Pilot Results

Final report of the Division III Academic Reporting Pilot Program. Read More

The presentation at the forum will open with a review of pilot results. They include federal graduation rates for student-athletes and the student body from the entering classes of 2003 and 2004. The federal rate is the proportion of students who enrolled as full-time, first-time freshmen who graduated from the same institution within six years of initial enrollment.

The results also include a Division III Academic Success Rate that includes all non-scholarship freshmen student-athletes on the roster on the first date of competition. The Division III ASR is similar to the Division I Graduation Success Rate and the Division II ASR in that it removes from the cohort students who left the institution in good academic standing before graduation.

Academic Working Group Members

Jeff Ankrom, faculty athletics representative at Wittenberg University (chair of the Division III Financial Aid Committee)
Robert Antonucci, president at Fitchburg State College (member of the Division III Presidents Council)
Cindy Babington, vice president for student affairs at DePauw University
Merle Canfield, director of institutional research and assessment at State University of New York at Cortland
• Stanton Ching, faculty athletics representative at Connecticut College (member of the Division III Management Council)
Tim Downes, athletics director at Emory University (member of the Division III Management Council)
Dennis Leighton, faculty athletics representative at the University of New England
Del Malloy, commissioner of the New England Collegiate Conference
Lisa Marsh Ryerson, president at Wells College (member of the Division III Presidents Council)
Chris Martin, commissioner of the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (chair of the Division III Management Council)
Tim Millerick, vice president for student affairs at Austin College
James Schmotter, president of Western Connecticut State University (vice-chair of the Division III Presidents Council)
Genie Wambaugh, director for institutional planning and effectiveness at Thomas More College

Over two years, 157 schools submitted data to calculate the rates (95 schools submitted in both years; 20 submitted in Year 1 but not Year 2; 42 submitted for the first time in Year 2). Initial results based on the 95 schools that submitted data in both years is highlighted in the report. Those schools are “representative” of the division with respect to private/public, average enrollment, average sports sponsorship, and proportion of athletes to undergraduate enrollment.

For the 2003 cohort, the student-athlete graduation rate (compiled using the federally mandated methodology) was 66 percent, compared to 63 percent for the student body. For the 2004 cohort, the gap was 67 percent to 63 percent.

The Academic Success Rate (including freshmen who left the school in good academic standing) for the 2003 cohort is 88 percent; for the 2004 cohort, it’s 87 percent.

Once those results are reviewed, discussion/report-out sessions will be held on questions relating to the value of the data, the cost/benefit of collecting them, and the frequency and breadth of that collection. Working group members suggested some sort of straw vote to give attendees a more collective sense of which way the wind is blowing.

Comments from the roundtables will contribute to subsequent discussion in the governance structure during 2013. Any final decision to establish division-wide academic reporting would be subject to a membership vote at the 2013 Convention.

“Last year we tackled the issue of division-wide, year-round drug testing in the same way,” Schmotter said, citing the issues forum as a valuable method of gathering opinions from a number of members. “We believe we’ll get at least some preliminary direction on academic reporting in the same way.”

National Collegiate Athletic Association