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In this essay, Dr. Patricia P. Cormier, writing as the chair of the NCAA Division II Presidents Council, addresses the recent Knight Foundation Commission report on Intercollegiate Athletics. The Commission found that, due to exaggerated financial considerations and commercialism, big-time sports have grown at the expense of academic values in the U. S. These views are excerpted on the same pages as Dr. Cormier's remarks.
Dr. Cormier counters that the Knight Commission has focused principally on the more prosperous and ever-visible Division I-A football and basketball programs (involving fewer than 10 per cent of the 900 plus participating American institutions).
In addition to which, and more importantly in this context, some 260 U.S. Division II institutions foster programs for about 11,000 student-athletes. A larger percentage of Division II athletes can and do participate, whether recruited for the purpose or assisted financially, or both. With the educational environment the focus of primary concern, Division II schools encourage and support diversity, value good sportsmanship, and advocate fairness and equity.
For Division II officers--presidents, faculty, athletic administrators and student athletes--the new strategic plan (adopted in 1999) represents a covenant philosophy that benefits student-athlete welfare. Issues emphasized include achievement-orientation, governance, environment, and especially academic success.
To promote these elements, the Division II Presidents' Council has funded scholarship programs aimed at degree-completion student-athletes, as well as academic-support grant programs. It mandated as well a funded study of graduation rates and their measurement.
Division II's long-range plan incorporates an all-important monitoring priority to ensure its responsible financial status and fiscal prudence.
In addition, the Division II Manual, now with deregulated-amateurism legislation to highlight competitive equity, will make rules-compliance integral to and integrated with NCAA regulations to meet division-specific needs.
The Division II Presidents Council has recently asserted its commitment to ethnic and gender diversity in athletic administration, at both institutional and conference levels, to be implemented through a membership grant program.
The recent undertakings of Division II have so enhanced the significance of the student-athletes' educational experience that similar strategic plans have been created by the more than 400 members of NCAA Division III.
Dr. Cormier insists that "intercollegiate athletics has not eroded the educational values of higher education." On the contrary, the values and mission of Division II schools, with respect to athletics, find fulfilment and fruition.