BFA Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics

2011/2012 Meeting Schedule:

4-5pm on Aug 30, Sep 27, Oct 25, Nov 29, Jan 31, Feb 28, Mar 20, and Apr 24. Our normal meeting room is Ekeley S274; in November, January, March, and April, we will meet in the CIRES Reading Room, W230, which is down the hall from Ekeley S274.

These 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.

To get to the Reading Room, continue west past S274 and watch for the glass wall to your right.

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

2011/2012 Meetings:

• 31 January 2012
  • Agenda
  • Follow-up notes (posted after the meeting)
  • Homework for next meeting: read the BFA COIA motions (I'll put links here after the meeting)
• 29 November 2011
  • Agenda
  • Follow-up notes (posted after the meeting)
  • Homework for next meeting: TBD
  
  
• 25 October 2011
  • Agenda
  • Follow-up notes (posted after the meeting)
  • Homework for next meeting: please read this briefing document about the fall NCAA meetings
  
  
• 27 September 2011
  • Agenda
  • Follow-up notes (posted after the meeting)
  • Homework for next meeting: read this article about "The Shame of College Sports".
  
  
• 30 August 2011
  • Agenda
  • COIA's endorsement of the Knight Commission Recommendations, on which we will be voting at this meeting.
  • Follow-up notes (posted after the meeting)
  • Homework for next meeting: email discussion regarding COIA/Knight thing.

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
• 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:
  • 2000/2001
  • 2001/2002
  • 2002/2003
  • 2007/2008
  • 2008/2009
  • 2009/2010
  • 2010/2011
  
  
• From the media: (from more to less recent)
  • 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.