Academic Integrity in Intercollegiate Athletics: Principles, Rules, and Best Practices
1. Admissions
At many Division IA universities there are students admitted on athletics scholarships who do not meet normal minimal admissions criteria. The practical integrity of such admissions processes are difficult for faculty to evaluate in their role as stewards of academic integrity. At many institutions, faculty have not been responsible historically for setting minimum standards for admissions or in monitoring how these are administered in practice. However, because of a history of problems associated with college sports, the Coalition recommends that campuses consider developing policies and procedures that will clarify the principles for athlete admissions, and set parameters for them consistent with the institutional mission. Scholarship athletes who are admitted in this way may not be the only students who receive special consideration based on grounds other than academic qualifications, and the Coalition recommends as a best practice that campuses address policy development in this area broadly, so that values of providing educational access and maintaining academic integrity in special admissions are balanced for all groups. With specific regard to special admissions for scholarship athletes, the Coalition recommends for consideration the following guidelines, which may be adaptable in framing special admissions policies more broadly:
1.1 Campus administrations and Faculty Governance Bodies should develop policies setting criteria for admission of scholarship athletes. These criteria should be set with regard to both minimum standards for regular admissions and average qualifications of entering students. They can and generally should be above NCAA minimum limits.
1.2 Campus administrations and Faculty Governance Bodies should develop policies that set standard criteria for special admissions, consistent with maintaining academic integrity in special admissions balanced for all groups selected for admission, including special admissions for athletes, either for all sports programs taken together, or for individual programs. Efforts to obtain and maintain diversity in the campus population of athletes should not be compromised, so that athletes of all races, classes, and genders have access to the university.
1.3 The Campus Athletics Board should receive information on all scholarship athlete admits, and should annually certify to the campus Faculty Governance Body compliance with these policies.
1.4 Campuses should develop means to track and share with the Faculty Governance Body the academic performance of scholarship athletes who enroll through special admissions, to permit better understanding of how successfully the campus supports the academic needs of these students and what costs to the campus this may involve. Faculty Governance Bodies should also be provided with data concerning the academic progress of all athletes, allowing them to assess the range of admissions qualifications appropriate to athletes, adhering in all cases to the requirements of protections under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
1.5 Analogous policies and procedures should be developed to govern admission of transfer students who are scholarship athletes.
Athletes who transfer to four-year institutions from two-year institutions face particular difficulties. The COIA is not aware of good data pertaining to the academic success of athletes who transfer from junior colleges. Because concerns about possible problems are of longstanding, the Coalition supports the following recommendation:
1.6 The NCAA is encouraged to compile data and undertake a systematic study of the success rate of athletes transferring from junior colleges and of problems particular to this transition, with the goal of providing information that can help guide schools in admissions decisions and effective advising. Such a study should include a survey of the impact of recent NCAA academic reforms on junior college transfer students.