Campus Athletics Governance, the Faculty Role:  Principles, Proposed Rules, and Guidelines

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2.A  Principles of Campus Athletics Boards

1.   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 implies the need for policies that provide some distance between athletics and the operations of the board, and that stipulate a majority of board members be academic administrators or faculty members.  It also underlies the recommendation that individuals of academic and/or administrative stature and integrity be selected for the board, and that the campus-wide FGB contributes to decisions on who serves in this capacity.

2.   Consistency.  If a single guideline were given for athletic governance boards it might be this:  Academic policies and standards for 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. 

3.   Sunshine.  Sunshine informs and enlightens but it also exposes.  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.   

4.   Integration.  If faculty are to take a more active role in monitoring intercollegiate athletes, they must be connected to athletics operations in some way. 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.

5.   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.