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Governance Working Group
NCAA Self Study Governance and Compliance Sub-Committee
April 17, 2002 Minutes
The Governance Working Group held its first meeting on April 17.
During the first part of the meeting, we discussed how to organize our
task of getting information on governance. First, we outlined the
questions that should be asked about governance to the people who are
invited to meet with our committee. Those questions are attached
below.
Second, we discussed who else, beyond President Kirwan and Athletic
Director Geiger, should be interviewed. VP for Student Affairs Bill
Hall and VP for Business and Finance Bill Shkurti were added to our
list. Getting feedback on governance matters from past and present
heads of Athletic Council was viewed as useful as well. Finally, we
discussed what additional materials should be added to the NCAA Review
website. That website has now been created as:
http://newmedia.osu.edu/projects/ncaa/one.html. A few materials are
now on it, with more to come. Among other things, Athletic Council
minutes and Board of Trustee minutes pertaining to athletics and
information on the structure and charge of the Athletic
Council need to be added.
For the next hour, President Kirwan met with us to respond to our
questions about the governance of intercollegiate athletics and to
express his own perspectives on this topic. This was a very useful
discussion, touching upon a variety of issues that we will need to
address in preparing our report. In particular, President Kirwan
stressed the importance in general of: (1) a strong Athletic Council,
engaged in active oversight of athletics and in integrating athletics
into the broader university community; (2) the AD reporting directly
to the President in order to keep athletics connected to the academic
side of the university; and (3) strong fiscal oversight of athletics
budgets, especially in evaluating whether particular spending
proposals both can (is the sense of do we have the money) and should
(even if we have the money, is this good policy for intercollegiate
athletics on the campus) be supported.
Attending: Paul Beck, Doug Berman, Leslie Fine, Susan Hartman, Mark
Morrison, Kimberly Mahoney, Jack Rall, Kris Richardson, Anne Wilkinson
Submitted by Paul Beck, Chair
Questions for Governance Interviews
1. Governance goals: What should the goals be for governance of
intercollegiate athletics? What role does governance process play in
fit between mission of university and its intercollegiate athletics
program?
2. Governance structure: What are the different organizational
arrangements for governance? To whom should athletics director
report? What should be the role of the athletic council? How is
university fiscal and budgetary oversight best achieved?
3. Academic goals: How can such academic goals as upholding
admissions standards, retention, graduation, and independence of
academic decisions best be achieved? Are there any particular
problems with achieving academic goals at OSU?
4. Problems in athletics, governance as remedy at OSU: What particular
problems arise with intercollegiate athletics? Have any of these
problems arisen at OSU? How can governance process prevent them from
arising, in general and here?
5. Changes in governance at OSU: What have been the major changes in
OSU's governance of intercollegiate athletics since the 1996 first
cycle report? How well have they worked?
6. Decisions about athletics at OSU: What have been most important
decisions about intercollegiate athletics at OSU since 1996 or (if
shorter) during your time here, and how has the governance process
been involved in making them.
7. Weaknesses/problems at OSU: Are there any weaknesses in or problems
with the governance process at OSU? What are they?
8. Representation of stake-holders: How can governance process best
represent interests and concerns of student athletes, athletics staff,
students, faculty, staff? Have we achieved good representation for
each at OSU?
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