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DIII aid violations may generate broader allegations

By Gary Brown
NCAA.org

The NCAA enforcement staff may start including allegations of an institution’s “failure to monitor” or a “lack of institutional control” in future major infractions cases that involve violations of Division III financial aid rules.

The potential to apply such allegations comes in light of several major infractions cases in the last three years that have involved institutions granting financial aid to student-athletes disproportionately or distinguishable from other students, which is contrary to bedrock Division III principles.

Additionally, many of the more than 40 secondary violations cases uncovered by the committee during this time involved “leadership” grants or other awards not specifically stated as athletically related but clearly with ties to athletics participation.

The Division III membership adopted legislation effective in 2005 requiring institutions to report financial aid packages for freshmen and transfers as a way to demonstrate compliance with Bylaw 15. Since then, the enforcement staff has not applied “failure to monitor” or “lack of institutional control” in major infractions cases – despite it being within that group’s purview – in order to allow enough time for the membership to be educated about the legislation’s implementation, expectations and impact.

But the enforcement staff is now wondering whether the infractions cases in and of themselves are proving to be enough of a deterrent, especially since it anticipates that the Division III Financial Aid Committee will forward additional, potentially major cases for the Division III Committee on Infractions’ review.

Thus, the enforcement staff has indicated that it will begin to “carefully scrutinize future financial aid cases to determine if it is appropriate to include an allegation of failure to monitor and/or a lack of institutional control.”

The item was reported at the Division III Management Council’s meeting in Indianapolis on Monday and Tuesday. It was an informational item for the Council, since the enforcement staff has the authority to begin including those allegations at its discretion.

Division III proposed the financial aid reporting procedures in 2004 as part of a comprehensive initiative to ensure that all Division III programs were being conducted in accordance with the division’s philosophy, which includes strict adherence to not awarding financial aid based on athletics ability.

The reporting process helped in that it identified and then corrected many institutional processes in which schools were inadvertently violating the intent of Bylaw 15. It also uncovered a few major violations, which the Financial Aid Committee thought would be enough to influence behavior. However, given that some inappropriate financial aid practices appear to remain, the enforcement staff is considering applying harsher measures.

In a related matter, the Management Council at its April meeting agreed to ask the Division III Committee on Infractions to consider granting the enforcement staff the discretion to publicly disclose any secondary violation regarding consideration of athletics leadership, ability, participation or performance within the student financial aid awarding process.

These violations have been prevalent in most of the cases referred to the enforcement staff in recent years. Most have been processed as secondary violations, since they are usually isolated or inadvertent and have not resulted in a recruiting advantage. Because they are secondary violations, they traditionally are not reported publicly.

The Division III Financial Aid Committee, however, noted that many of these violations could have been avoided if the institution reviewed its awarding policies for compliance with NCAA legislation. Public reprimand, as a potential sanction for violations such as these, would provide incentive for institutions to ensure their policies comply with NCAA bylaws.

Other highlights

In other action at the Division III Management Council’s April 11-12 meeting, members:

• Supported a “dashboard indicators” pilot program at the behest of presidents who seek more accurate data to benchmark their institutional spending against selected peer groups.
• Noted that in accordance with the resolution at the Convention to study the appropriate bench size at NCAA championships, team sports committees (as well as the golf and tennis committees) have been asked to provide feedback regarding the appropriate number of individuals in the squad size and bench size, and the appropriate number of non-athletes in the official traveling party, for their respective sport by April 15. Data requested are (1) the 2010-11 NCAA squad size; (2) the 2009-10 average squad size for all institutions sponsoring the sport; (3) the average squad size of institutions in the championship field from 2005 to 2010; (4) the average squad size of institutions competing at the finals site from 2005 to 2010; and (5) the average number of participants per year in the sport for institutions competing at the finals site from 2005 to 2010. The Division III Championships Committee will review the information during its May 10 teleconference and May 31-June 1 in-person meeting and recommend appropriate adjustments in advance of the July 1 deadline for communication to the membership.
• Approved in concept a modification of wording that clarifies that an institutional voting delegate must be present at the NCAA Division III business session to meet the legislated attendance requirement (rather than the current legislation suggesting that the institution will have satisfied the attendance requirement if a conference representative casts the institution’s vote).
• Approved attendance at the Northeast compliance seminar pilot in 2012 as a means of satisfying the NCAA Regional Rules Seminars attendance requirement. The Division III Membership Committee approved the pilot after eight Northeast conferences asked to conduct a compliance seminar at one of their member institutions on a biennial basis, beginning in spring 2012. The request also sought to use the Northeast compliance seminar toward the once-in-three-years legislative requirement to attend the NCAA Regional Rules Seminars. The pilot will be conducted during the 2011-12 academic year to gathering additional information to determine whether a Division III-specific compliance seminar(s) is feasible on a more permanent basis.
• Noted the launch of the Division III Facebook page designed to build a fan base within the Division III community and further understanding of the division’s purpose and success to the general public.

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