Introduction
While the NCAA Constitution does not require colleges or
universities to have an athletics committees or boards, most institutions have
them. These boards typically have both advisory and legislative functions.
Depending on the blend of these responsibilities and the specific duties that
have been delegated to them by the CEO of the institution, boards may play
central and highly influential roles in athletic governance. They establish
policy, monitor compliance, and promote a strong academic climate for
athletics—always with the understanding that the chief executive officer has
final responsibility and authority for intercollegiate athletics.
Athletics boards, along with the Faculty Athletics
Representative, are supposed to play an important role in the overall checks and
balances system designed to insure academic integrity and athletics rules
compliance. This intent is made clear by board membership requirements
established by the NCAA. According to Article 6 of the Constitution, each
athletics board must include “at least a majority” of full-time academic
administrators and regular faculty. Where parliamentary procedures require more
than a simple majority to enact policies, faculty and administrators “shall be
of sufficient number to constitute at least that majority.”
Such guidelines help to keep the operation of
intercollegiate athletics in line with the central educational mission of each
campus. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of athletic boards varies considerably
from campus to campus. Some provide a strong counterweight to the economic
pressures on athletics, pressures that are particularly forceful at Division I
institutions. Others seem unable or unwilling to enact and enforce academic
policies that would assure, for example, sound admissions decisions for
student-athletes and standards for academic progress that are consistent with
regulations used for the rest of the student body.
The guidelines in this paper have been developed for the
express purpose of strengthening faculty voice in the governance of
intercollegiate athletics through athletic boards or committees.
Using the Guidelines
The guidelines are intended to allow an institution to
check its athletics governance board structure and function in an efficient
way. It is not designed to provide a comprehensive look at all potentially
useful practices, nor does it reflect different needs that may be present at
Division I, II, and III levels. Readers will need to review the recommendations
critically to determine which ones may be helpful for their institution or their
particular circumstances.
As was the case with the Guidelines for NCAA Faculty
Athletics Representatives, different institutional traditions, personnel,
missions, academic standards, league affiliations, and the like will influence
what will work and what will not. In general, however, it is suggested that the
specific guidelines provided below reflect sound educational values and
principles that are shared by all institutions, including those that belong to
the NAIA and other intercollegiate organizations.
Principles that Inform the Guidelines
-
Independence/integrity. The athletics governance
board is part of the checks and balances system for administering and
overseeing the intercollegiate program. It is essential that, both in
appearance and in fact, members of the board have the best interests of the
core academic mission of the institution at heart. This leads to a number of
policies that provide some distance between athletics and the operations of
the board. This principle supports the guidelines that a majority of board
members be academic administrators or faculty members. It also undergirds the
recommendation that individuals of academic and/or administrative stature and
integrity be selected for the board, and that the campus-wide faculty
governance body has a say in who serves in this capacity.
-
Consistency. If a single guideline were given
for athletic governance boards is might be this: Academic policies and
standards for student-athletes should be consistent with the regulations that
apply to the student body at large. This leads to a number of guidelines that
affect the functions of athletics boards. For instance, guidelines for
establishing policies on admissions, normal progress, grade point average
requirements and the like stem from this principle.
-
Sunshine. This may be one of the more difficult
principles to follow. Sunshine informs and enlightens but it also exposes.
Nevertheless, the ethical concept on which this principle is grounded is
broadly accepted: Always act in ways that you would be willing, in principle,
to make public.
-
Integration. If faculty are to take a more
active role in monitoring intercollegiate athletes, they must be connected to
athletics operations in some way or another. One connection is provided by
regular and effective communication, including an open, two-way flow of
information. Athletics will not be integrated into the larger campus
community so long as members of that community do not know what is going on in
that program. But it is also important that the athletics board not be
isolated from other elements of faculty governance. This leads to a number of
recommendations that would connect the Faculty Senate or other faculty
governance board to the athletics committee.
-
Uncertainty/fluidity. Higher education and the
intercollegiate athletics programs within it are both undergoing change.
Thirty years ago, many athletics units were housed in physical education or
other departments and most coaches were on academic appointments. Today, in
most institutions, athletics resides (administratively and, often too,
culturally) outside the academic mainstream, and few if any coaches hold
academic rank. Faculty governance of athletics must change as the
institutional landscape for intercollegiate sports continues to evolve.
Guidelines: (1) Board Charge and Composition
q
Has clearly established functions and responsibilities that are
acknowledged by the CEO of the institution
q
Has both advisory and legislative functions
q
Has legislative functions that have a substantial effect on
academic integrity. These may include the following: admissions policies,
standards for normal progress and good academic standing (GPA), and limits for
missed class time for competition.
q
Includes faculty and academic administrators who are highly
respected by peers for their research, teaching, service, or administrative work
outside intercollegiate athletics
q
Includes the institution’s Faculty Athletics Representative as a
voting or ex-officio member
q
Includes the Athletics Director and other athletically-related
personnel (e.g., Senior Women’s Administrator, Director of Admissions, Head of
the Student-Athlete Advisement Center) as ex-officio members
q
Has a specified relationship to the regular faculty governance body (hereafter FGB).* This relationship may be established in one or
more of the following ways, listed (in general) from weaker to stronger
connections:
·
A member of the board is designated as the official liaison to the
FGB.
·
A specified number of board members must also be members of the FGB.
·
A specified number of board members are appointed or elected by
the FGB.
·
The board is required to send all legislation that affects the
academic well-being of
student-athletes through the FGB.
·
The board is required to provide regular informational reports to
the FGB, minimally
on an annual basis
·
The board is a standing subcommittee of the FGB.
*The FGB is often called a Faculty
Senate, Faculty Assembly, or Faculty Organization, though it may go by other
names on various campuses. Whatever it is called, this is the group that has
legislative and advisory functions related to curricular and other academic
matters as well as the overall intellectual climate on campus.
Guidelines: (2) Board Functions
q
Reviews data on admissions decisions, including progress and
graduation success rates by
admission category
q
Promotes admissions policies that are consistent with admissions
policies outside intercollegiate
athletics
q
Reviews data on normal progress and grade point averages
q
Establishes policy for normal progress and grade point average
that meets minimal NCAA and
any conference requirements
q
Establishes policy for normal progress and grade point average
that exceeds NCAA and conference requirements,
where this is consistent with the institution’s standards for other students
q
Reviews information on all athletic schedules
q
Establishes policy for excused absences and maximum amount of
missed class time for athletic
competition
q
Certifies the academic eligibility of students of athletic
grants-in-aid
q
Reviews major requests for waiver of any institutional athletics
policies
q
Delegates responsibilities for review of minor requests for waiver
of institutional athletics
policies to the Faculty Athletics Representative
q
Develops a method to determine needs, interests, and concerns of
student-athletes
q
Reports activities, on at least an annual basis, to the FGB
Guidelines: (3) Board Communications/accountability
q
Communicates information beyond won-loss records (and other
athletic achievements) to the broader
campus community and specifically to the FGB
q
Shares information, within boundaries established by institutional
policy* and Federal
regulations, on such matters as the following:+
--the
number of Presidential or special admits
--a comparison of the
number special admits for athletes and
similar admissions for other
reasons (e.g., unusual musical talents)
--an analysis of the
academic success (including graduate rate) for
all special admits in comparison
to other student-athletes and the entire student body
--a longitudinal analysis of
student athlete graduation rates in
comparison to
the entire student body
--information on the grade point
averages of student-athletes in
comparison to
the entire student body
--information on
the distribution of majors selected by student-
athletes in
comparison to the entire student body
--information on academic honors
(e.g., academic All-America)
won by
student-athletes
q
Coordinates informational reports to the FGB, given by the Chair
of the Board and/or the
Faculty Athletics Representative
q
Encourages informational reports to the FGB by the Director of
Athletics
*Some colleges and universities,
for instance, have policies that prohibit the publication of employee salaries
or limit information that can be shared on institutional budgets.
+It is expected that schools will
vary considerably on their willingness to share some of the information listed
here. Where athletic operations traditionally have been more closed, it may be
impractical to move quickly to a different policy. However, these guidelines
are presented here as worthy ideals under the principle of “sunshine.”
Bibliography
AAUP Committee Report. (January/February, 1990).
"The role
of faculty in the governance of college athletics:
A report of the special committee on athletics." Academe, 43-47.
NOTE: See also,
AAUP Committee Report (Academe, January/February 2003):
The Faculty Role in the Reform of Intercollegiate Athletics:
Principles and Recommended Practices
http://www.aaup.org/statements/REPORTS/03athlet.htm
Duderstadt, James J. (2000).
Intercollegiate athletics and the American university: A president’s perspective.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
Gerdy, John R. (Summer, 1992). Faculty and collegiate
athletics reform: Seizing the moment. Educational Record, 73 (3), 45-49.
Gerdy, John R. (ed.). (2000). Sports in school: The
future of an institution. New York: Teachers College Press.
Newman, Richard E., Miller, Michael, & Bartee, Jane G.
(2000). "Faculty Involvement in Intercollegiate Athletic
Governance." Unpublished document. ERIC, ED 438 767.
Smith, Ronald A. (1983). Preludes to the NCAA: Early
failures of faculty intercollegiate athletic control. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 54(4), 372-382.
Sperber, Murray. (2000). Beer and circus: How
big-time college sports is crippling undergraduate education.
New York: Henry Holt.
Resources
Knight Commission. (Highly visible national group involved
in athletic reform.)
(http://www.knightfdn.org/default.asp?story=athletics/finalreport.html)
The Drake Group (Faculty organization devoted to athletic
reform)
(http://www.westga.edu/~drake/)
Sample of websites for athletic governance policies:
Penn State:
http://www.psu.edu/ufs/ (general Faculty Senate Policies/Structure)
http://www.psu.edu/ufs/policies/ (67-00 rule on athletics)