2013 NCAA Convention: It Takes A Village Notes
The session titled “It Takes a Village: Shared Responsibility for Athletics Compliance” touched on how to build relationships and get the larger campus community involved in athletics compliance. The panelists included faculty athletics representatives and administrators from all three NCAA divisions.
One consistent theme was the building of relationships informally. Face-to-face meetings, regular interactions, and especially lunch were brought up as ways to establish a relationship with people outside the athletics department. Key was for athletics, especially compliance, to not always be seen as demanding something or bringing bad news. Those relationships need to be managed and protected as well, since they can damaged or destroyed by one person very easily.
Divisional differences were also highlighted. Timothy Millerick of DIII Austin College spoke of the financial aid challenges and the possible dangers of having athletics directly under the president. Keith Vitense of DII Cameron University spoke about the greater hands-on role of the FAR in Division II. Eleanor Myers and Sherryta Freeman from Temple University discussed the challenges of getting faculty on board when dealing with a large, visible Division I athletic department.
The session finished with some concrete recommendations, like:
- Bringing coaches to class or faculty to games;
- Athletics staff getting involved in university committees and departments;
- Addressing the faculty senate or getting the opportunity to speak to new hires;
- Look at how the institution reports things to leadership, and how athletics can get into the reporting mechanism.