The Division I Leadership Council provided advice to a group in the newly redesigned governance structure: the Council. The Leadership Council met Thursday in Indianapolis.
The Leadership Council meeting was the first since the Board of Directors adopted in August a new governance structure that will begin to take effect in January 2015. Next week, the board is expected to appoint new board members, a new Committee on Academics and the members of the Council, a group comprised largely of athletics directors and intended to conduct the day-to-day business of the division.
Other substructures will be designed later by the Council.
“This Leadership Council has been an important part of the governance discussions since conversations began nearly two years ago,” said chair Noreen Morris, commissioner of the Northeast Conference. “Given the knowledge base, expertise and clear understanding of the concepts, who better to assist the new Council in forming the substructure?”
The Leadership Council had three major pieces of advice for the Council:
- Develop a substructure that allows you to fulfill your responsibility to lead the division as well as build a strategic agenda that addresses the membership’s needs.
- Empower the groups that report to you to make decisions.
- Create a structure that ensures communication and transparency, both among the entities within the structure and Division I members.
Communication was a key theme of the council’s discussions, both within the governance structure and to the membership more broadly. Members suggested that overlap of Council members on other substructure groups would help keep communication lines open and provide important perspective.
Members who serve also should continue to be engaged with NCAA staff and each other, not just at the meetings but in between meetings as concerns surface. A consistent and high level of involvement by the volunteers who serve on NCAA governance bodies will naturally lead to more informed decision-making for the organization, Morris said.
In addition to the communication piece, members believed the new Council should populate the groups that report to it with the “thought leaders” in those areas and then empower those groups to properly vet issues and make educated, informed decisions as well as recommendations to the Council.
“(Lack of) Empowerment and communication are two of the main reasons the current structure was not as effective as it could have been,” Morris said. “We are a membership organization, and the people who serve in the governance structure should be engaged and empowered as well as placed in a position where they take ownership and accountability for making a positive impact on the lives our student-athletes.”
Leadership Council members also discussed the potential membership and responsibilities of two possible sub-councils in the areas of championships and legislation. Both would report to the Council.
In the championships area, the group discussed the need to create a more collaborative and possibly streamlined approach to ensure that sport-specific issues, including championship issues, are handled in a more strategic and holistic way.
One example would be to create “sports commissions” for all or selected sports. Those would bring together the multiple conversations that currently occur independently, without a dedicated decision-making body and without a clear set of desired outcomes.
The Leadership Council members also discussed a need for new Council members to be more involved in budget and finance issues, particularly as decisions are made that might have impact in those areas.
The new Council will sort through the advice from the Leadership Council and other groups as it begins to develop its substructure. The group’s initial meeting is set for the 2015 NCAA Convention in Washington, D.C.