BFA Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics

2012/2013 Meeting Schedule:

11am-noon in Ekeley S274 on 29 August, 26 September, 31 October, 28 November, 12 December, 30 January, and 24 April. On 27 February and 20 March, we will meet in the reading room down the hall (W230).

This rooms are not easy to locate if you are not familiar with the complex. The easiest way to find S274 is to enter the Ekeley/CIRES building from the south, under the overpass linking it to the Cristol Chemistry building, walk west across the atrium to the enclosed stairwell, and take those stairs (not the open stairs in the atrium) to the second floor. S274 is the first room to the left of the stair exit.

The non ex officio members of the committee may meet in executive session at other times. Please watch your email for notifications.

2012/2013 Meeting Materials:

24 April 2013 cancelled
20 March 2013
- Agenda
- Follow-up notes
- Homework for next meeting: TBD
27 February 2013
- Agenda
- Follow-up notes
- Homework for next meeting: TBD
30 January 2013
- Agenda
- Follow-up notes
- Homework for next meeting:
  - Look over this exit survey questionnaire
12 December 2012
- Agenda
- Follow-up notes
- Homework for next meeting:
  - think about the changing role of faculty in the university
  - read these two pieces from the newsobserver.com and the Charlotte Observer about academics & athletics at UNC Chapel Hill.
28 November 2012
- Agenda
- Follow-up notes
- Homework for next meeting: think about the changing role of faculty in the university.
31 October 2012
- Agenda
- Follow-up notes
- Homework for next meeting:
  - Read this article from the Chronicle about MOOCs and student-athletes.
  - Read pp1-7 of this document about academi integrity at UNC
  - think about the changing role of faculty in the university.
26 September 2012
- Agenda
- Follow-up notes
- Homework for next meeting:
  - faculty/athletics engagement ideas
  - from the Chronicle: How Does Football Success Affect Student Performance?
  - from the Chronicle: Why I Resigned the Paterno Chair
29 August 2012
- Agenda
- Follow-up notes (posted after the meeting)
- Homework for next meeting: TBD

Resources and documents

The Big 12 departure terms
The class-absence policy in html and in plaintext. Here is the BFA's link to this motion and the version for club sports.
The committee charge.
The BAB charge.
The position description for the faculty athletics representative (FAR) at CU.
The webpage for the Colorado Springs IAAC, their equivalent to the BFA IAC.
The BFA's recommendations regarding weekday home football games .
BFA's Resolution of Support for Academic Excellence in Athletics
BFA webpages:
- The general BFA webpage
- The page of past motions
- The BFA's webpage for this committee, which includes contact information for its members.
- The BFA resolution on faculty involvement in athletics
Athletics Dept webpages:
- The official CU athletics website, which has contact information, org charts, etc. etc. (Mike, Ceal: please let me know if this is not the right site to list here, or if there are others that would be useful to add.)
- The website of the Herbst Academic Center, the Department of Athletics' academic support organization.
Old committee materials:
From the media: (from more to less recent)
- A December 2012 article from ncaa.org about the academic turnaround at San Jose State.
- A November 2012 article from the Chronicle about MOOCs and student-athletes.
- A November 2012 article from Social Science Quarterly by our own Scott Adler entitled Pushing "Reset": The Conditional Effects of Coaching Replacements on College Football Performance
- An October 2012 article from the Chronicle entitled How Does Football Success Affect Student Performance?
- An October 2012 article from the Chronicle entitled Why I Resigned the Paterno Chair
- A November 2011 article in the LA Times about pay-for-play and the proposal to fill the gap between stipend and expenses.
- An October 2011 article in Inside Higher Ed about the NCAA president's reaction to the "pay for play" debate.
- An October 2011 article in the Bloomburg about how much Rutgers's athletics is subsidized by student fees and the general fund (to the tune of more than 40% of their budget).
- An October 2011 article in the Atlantic entitled "The Shame of College Sports"
- An August 2011 op ed piece in the New York Times whose premise is that "Universities need to take control of their sports programs so their reputations do not suffer from athletic scandals."
- Duke's 2011 announcement about their Libraries Fund
- A January 2011 article from the New York Times about how Auburn's APR ranking changed when they closed up some academic loopholes.
- September 2010 articles from the Contra Costa Times and the Chronicle about sport discontinuance at Berkeley.
- A September 2010 article from the Chronicle about concussions and their effects on student-athletes
- An August 2010 article from the Chronicle entitled "A 'Meaningless Metric'?", which suggests that APR be hooked to coaches and not teams/schools.
- An August 2010 article from the Boston Globe about the (measurable & significant!) effects of sports in general (and Title IX in particular) on later success in life.
- A May 2010 article from Inside Higher Ed entitled "Are Athletics Scholarships Fair?".
- A January 2010 article from the Chronicle entitled "In Race to Succeed, Academic and Athletics Departments Are a Lot Alike, Speaker Says".
- A January 2010 article from USA Today entitled "Amid funding crisis, college athletics soak up subsidies, fees." This includes a searchable database that breaks down athletics budgets & fees for D1A universities.
- October 2009 articles from the Chronicle about the Knight Commission at its 20th anniversary and about college presidents feeling powerless to rein in athletics costs.
- A September 2009 article from the New York Times about Division II schools cutting competition schedules, in part to increase time on campus.
- A February 2009 article from the Chronicle entitled "Racial and Gender Diversity in College Sports Is 'Worst' in Many Years, Report Says".
- A December 2008 article from the New York Times about club sports(from Ted)
- A November 2008 article from the Chronicle entitled "U. of Texas Kicks Football Player Off Team for Anti-Obama Comment on Facebook."
- A November 2008 article from USA Today entitled "College athletes studies guided toward 'major in eligibility'" and a follow-up entitled "Athletes' academic choices put advisers in tough balancing act".
- An October 2008 press release from COIA about coach salary issues
- A September 2008 article from the Indianapolis Star about special admission standards for student-athletes (which CU does not have).
- A July 2008 article from the AAUP publication, Academe, written by a professor about his experiences with student-athletes.
- A March 2008 series from the Ann Arbor News on issues & problems in the Michigan athletics department.
  - Part I: independent study (a psychology prof who has provided independent study courses to hundreds of student athletes over the past 3 years)
  - Part II: choice of majors
  - Part III: the use of general studies as the preferred major for Michigan athletes.
  - Part IV:about Michigan's efforts to provide academic support for their student-athletes.
  - The University of Michigan's official response site for all of this. The "Q&A" part of this is very interesting. This site also contains the reports that are cited in the next bullet, but I'm keeping local copies here as well in case the UMich. site vanishes.
  - From Nathan Tublitz, the current COIA chair, via Ted Snow: "Michigan instigated two independent reviews on this allegation, one by the psychology department and the second by the associate dean of the college in which this faculty member teaches. Both reports cleared this professor of any wrongdoing. FYI, there is quite an uproar on the Michigan campus that the Ann Arbor News reporters may have obtained some of the data in the series illegally in violation of FERPA, the federal Family Education and Privacy Act. I would not be surprised if Michigan files formal charges agains the person(s) who released the protected data."
  - COIA's official press release about this matter.
  - A Wall Street Journal article about Tublitz and this whole kerfluffle.
  - The UMichigan equivalent of the BFA is now getting involved in this
- A March 2008 New York Times article entitled "The Scholarship Divide: Athletic Scholarships: Expectations Lose to Reality."
- A February 2008 Austin American Statesman article entitled "Academics should trump athletics, UT faculty says..."
- An October 2007 article from the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled "Athletes Outpace Students at Large in Graduation Rates, New NCAA Figures Show..."
- An October 2007 article from the Michigan Daily about a vote in their equivalent of the BFA "[...endorsing] a set of reforms that would increase the University central administration's oversight of athletic programs."
- An October 2007 article from the Chronicle of Higher Education about survey findings released on Tuesday by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. (First sentence: "a 'striking number' of professors involved in governance at universities with high-profile athletics programs know little about the issues facing college sports...").
- A 2001 Sports Illustrated story about an NCAA investigation of the University of Alabama.
- A 2001 New York Times story on athletics and academics at the University of Oregon.
- The Chronicle of Higher Education's Athletics site
The agenda and background document for the Knight Commission's Oct 2007 faculty summit on intercollegiate athletics. (The background document is 172 pages long, but pp 72-92 provide a summary.) Here's another article from the Chronicle reporting on what happened at that conference.