The 2019 annual meeting of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) will be held at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN on February 23-24, 2019. We recommend arriving in Knoxville on, Friday, February 22.  Please count on attending the meeting sessions scheduled for Saturday, February 23.  The Sunday morning program (February 24) will be a COIA business session for members only.

The theme of this year’s meeting will be Strengthening Faculty Senate Relationships with Athletic Departments. We are focusing on Best Practices and Solutions for Challenges.

Invited speakers include representatives from several different groups, including the Lead1 Association, the Knight Commission, the Drake Group, Faculty Athletic Representatives, Faculty Senate Leaders, faculty researchers whose focus is on the student-athlete experience, NCAA officials, Title IX Directors, and University athletic administrators.

Featured speakers and panelists will include Amy Perko, Chief Executive Officer for the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics; Fritz Polite, Executive Director of the Drake Group; and importantly, Tom McMillen, current President and Chief Executive Officer of the Lead1 Association, (formerly known as the Division 1-A Athletic Directors’ Association) advocating for athletic directors at Football Bowl Subdivision universities. McMillen is a former Democratic U. S. Representative from Maryland and Rhodes Scholar and was a former college, Olympic, and professional basketball player.

Faculty Athletics representatives speaking with us at the meeting will include: Don Bruce (Faculty Athletics Representative, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and member of the 1A Faculty Athletics Representatives Board), James Williams (Faculty Senate Athletics Committee Chair, University of Tennessee, Knoxville), and Ashley Blamey, UT System, to discuss new changes in Title IX and how it will impact universities.

MEETING and HOTEL LOGISTICS

Meetings will be held on the University of Tennessee, Knoxville campus.  A complete meeting agenda will be posted before we meet.

The conference hotel is the Crowne Plaza, located at 401 W. Summit Hill Drive, Knoxville, TN 37902.  A block of rooms is currently being held at the rate of $115 per night (single or double) + 17.5% taxes. Call 865-522-2600 and ask for the “Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics” block of rooms.  The block can also be accessed via their website (http://www.crowneplaza.com/knoxville) with the code “CIA.”

AIRPORT INFORMATION

The McGee-Tyson Airport (https://flyknoxville.com/airlines-at-tys/) serves the Knoxville metropolitan area, with service from Allegiant, American Airlines, Delta, Frontier and United.

We look forward to seeing you in Knoxville.

COIA 2018 Annual Meeting    April 21, 2018     CU, Boulder, CO       Host: Scott Gwozdz

Present: Jane Albrecht, Wake Forest; Margaret Blake, Houston; Adrien Bouchet, Tulsa; Mike Bowen, USF; Larry Gramling, UConn; Scott Gwozdz, Colorado; Darren Kelly, UT-Austin; Joan King, LSU; Stephen Marshall, UT-Austin; Steven Minaglia, Hawaii; Bonnie Ownley, UTenn; John Putman, SDSU; Jaci Van Heest, UConn; Kelley Withy, Hawaii

Effective Oversight of Intercollegiate Athletics and the Role of Faculty

Meeting Highlights

Election of New COIA Officers: Chair, Bonnie Ownley; Vice Chair, Joan King; Secretary, Jane Albrecht; Immediate Past Chair, Mike Bowen; Chair of Administration and Communication Committee, Kelley Withy; Chair of Student Athlete Welfare Committee, Scott Gwozdz; Chair of Academic Integrity Committee, Adrien Bouchet; at-large member 1 year, Larry Gramling; at-large 2 years, John Putman. 

ANNOUNCEMENT OF NEXT TWO ANNUAL MEETINGS:

February 2019 U Tennessee-Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, hosted by Bonnie Ownley;

February 2020 LSU, Baton Rouge LA, hosted by Joan King. 

After discussion, the membership voted to recommend inviting NCAA Division I FCS schools to join COIA. This recommendation will go to the member senates for opinions, as will changes to the bylaws if the decision is made to invite FCS schools to join.

Adrien Bouchet will lead a COIA study on academic integrity collecting data through a survey or surveys of FARs, athletics departments, provosts, Senate presidents and COIA reps, with the goal of creating ideas of best practices.

Food for Thought from Two Speakers

Robert “Bob” Malekoff, UNC-Chapel Hill

The NCAA it is under siege from Congress, student players’ union, the player likeness suit, the Adidas bribery scandal. But these are minor compared to the major problem, which is how intercollegiate athletics (IA) is integrated with academics on campuses. The onus is on the faculty to oversee athletics.  How to engage faculty? Be intentional and deliberate and hit on two or three themes: 1) focus on the student experience, to have as good an experience academically as possible; 2) define academic integrity on each campus. Is the problem just in athletics? Are there bunches of classes that aren’t rigorous on your individual campus? Or is there clustering in certain majors? 3) and this is key: admit students who can do the work. Know who is on your campuses “special admits” committee and know how they track students.  The best work can be done locally.

Roger Pielke, University of Colorado

Student athletes create value for the universities.  Why is it so difficult for faculty to get their heads around that?  Ideas that faculty should support: 1) award college credit for sports participation based on the model of music; 2) tailor opportunities to athletes, teach more true online courses, dedicate faculty to support athletes, set flexible meeting times like Monday-Tuesday classes, offer course work on sports; 3) support more equitable compensation. Compensation does not have to be a salary paid:  athletes should have name, image and likeness rights; receive stipends that are tied to the lowest stipend paid to a TA on campus; and receive cash prizes from the NCAA after March Madness on the model of Olympic prize money.

The revised by-laws of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) called for a restructuring of the COIA Steering Committee into nine positions to better enact COIA business and to help ensure a smaller, more committed and active representation of the COIA member universities’ interests.

The following individuals have been elected to fill the nine positions on the 2017-18 COIA Steering Committee.  We are very pleased to have such distinguished, and committed, faculty scholars on the new Steering Committee.

Please contact any of the new Steering Committee members if you have any questions, and please give them thanks for their willingness to serve.

Joan King (Louisiana State University) Vice-Chair

Bonnie Ownley (University of Tennessee): Chair

Jane Albrecht (Wake Forest University)

Lawrence Gramling (University of Connecticut)

Scott Gwozdz (University of Colorado at Boulder)

Kelley Withy (University of Hawaii)

Adrien Bouchet (University of Tulsa)

John Putman (San Diego State University)

Mike Bowen (University of South Florida): Immediate Past-Chair

The 2017 (14th) Annual Meeting of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) was held from Friday, February 17, through Sunday afternoon, February 19, 2017, at Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, NC.  The meeting was graciously and well hosted by WFU Professor of Romance Languages, and long-term COIA Steering Committee member, Jane Albrecht.  Our efforts were guided by consultant Jean Frankel at the meeting.  We owe her a deep debt of gratitude for her productive efforts on our behalf.

The Meeting report was compiled in two separate documents, one for each day of the meeting:

The report for the Saturday, February 18, 2017, sessions is HERE.

The report for the Sunday, February 19, 2017, sessions is HERE.

MISSION and VISION STATEMENTS

At the meeting, a new mission statement was written and approved for the coalition:

“To promote academic excellence, integrity and student well-being in intercollegiate athletics.”

The meeting also produced a vision statement for the coalition moving forward:

“Faculty mobilizing faculty to enhance the student-athlete experience.”

Core Values and Beliefs

As developed by those attending the annual meeting, February, 2017:

• Student Athletes are Students First
• Academic Integrity
• Scholarship and Critical inquiry
• Diversity and Inclusiveness
• Financial Responsibility and Sustainability of Intercollegiate Athletics
• Transparency and Open Dialogue
• Protection of Student health and Safety

ELECTIONS

Following the passage of the bylaws’ revision, elections are now scheduled to fill the Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary and five remaining Steering Committee positions.

We will soon be asking for a vote on the nominations for the following EIGHT Steering Committee positions for COIA, as designated in our bylaws:

 * The Immediate past chair position will be filled by Outgoing Chair Mike Bowen who has agreed to serve, his term expiring 2020.

ACTION ITEMS

Besides electing our Steering Committee, here is a tentative table of the actions decided upon at the annual meeting for over the summer and beyond:

The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA; the Coalition) is an alliance of faculty senates from NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools. COIA’s mission is to provide a national faculty voice on intercollegiate sports issues. Areas of concern include academic integrity and quality, student-athlete welfare, campus governance of intercollegiate athletics, commercialization, and fiscal responsibility. The Coalition is committed to the development of effective strategies and proposals for significant, long-term reform in college athletics. COIA works with university faculties, administrations, trustee boards, and national associations concerned with higher education, to implement these strategies and proposals.

Currently, FBS schools that have faculty senates are eligible to be members of COIA. During the past several years, COIA has produced a number of white papers and other documents that lay out recommendations for reform. These recommendations offer best practices that can be used by schools to examine their own policies and practices with regard to intercollegiate athletics. Many of these recommendations have also been discussed with the NCAA as possible action items.

The faculty governance body of any NCAA FBS school can be a member of COIA (see How to Join COIA). We are an ad hoc group and operate without staff or budget. Our direction is determined by our member senates, and we warmly welcome any NCAA Division IA senate that votes to join the COIA on the basis of a general agreement with the principles laid out in our policy papers and reports.