The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) is an alliance of faculty senates and councils from public and private universities from NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools. Our mission is to provide a national faculty voice on intercollegiate sports issues. As faculty, we are committed to promoting academic excellence, integrity, and health and safety of all of our student-athletes across our great universities. Our core values are centered on Student-Athletes as Students First, and we support the NCAA programs that promote our core values. But, we are strongly opposed to compensation for student-athletes, and we think that entertaining ideas such as payment for their name, image, and likeness (NIL) will serve to greatly erode the concept of amateur athletics at the college level. Such compensation will create unfair advantages among schools that cannot be mitigated, and will lead to improper recruiting and transfer inducements that cannot be prevented. It is also likely that student-athletes will be unfairly burdened with complex and difficult choices related to prioritizing financial gain over commitment to academic achievement. We believe that exploring compromises that would support NIL payments will eventually lead to direct payments to players for their athletic performance. We urge the NCAA to support Student-Athletes as Students First and not adopt a system for compensating student athletes for their name, image and likeness.

Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics

Annual Meeting 2020, Louisiana State University

February 14-16, 2020

Meeting Registration: lsufoundation.org/coia

Attendees should fly into Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (BTR).  https://www.flybtr.com/

The airport is 10 miles (about a 15 min drive without traffic) to the Cook Hotel which is situated on the LSU campus.

Hotel Information

The Cook Hotel and Conference Center at LSU, 3848 West Lakeshore Drive, Baton Rouge, LA 70808

The cutoff date for booking rooms for the reserved block is Jan. 14, 2020. 

Group Stay Rates: February 14, 2020 to February 16, 2020

• Standard King: $125/night
• Standard Double: $125/night
• King Suite: $145/night

To reserve, call: 225-383-COOK (2665) and use group name (Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics) for rates.  Online codes 200214COAL. 

Hotel designated check-in time is 3:00pm, and check-out time is 11am. Early arrivals and late departures can only be honored based on availability.

Guest Amenities:

• Complimentary hot breakfast buffet available 6:00 – 9:30 AM daily
• 24-Hour Front Desk concierge service including free fax services, wake-up calls, and arranging taxi services
• Complimentary High-Speed Wired and Wireless Internet Access
• 200+ all-digital HDTV Channels including movies, sports and entertainment, and children’s programming
• LSU Alumni Gift Shop open 6 days a week with official LSU merchandise, boutique fashions, accessories, and gifts for Men, Women, & Children
• 24-hour sundries shop offering travel necessities, snacks, beer & wine, and take-away sandwiches, wraps and frozen meals
• Complimentary newspapers
• Original artwork highlights local and internationally known artists
• Dry cleaning service (partner service)
• Complimentary self-parking
• Daily housekeeping w/light touch service upon request
• Accessibility rooms (roll-in showers, visual strobes for hearing impaired, etc.)
• Exhilarating campus and lake views
• Entirely non-smoking

Friday, Feb. 22
7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Steering Committee meeting for all current members, and for those interested in serving in an elected leadership position in COIA. Meet in the Crowne Plaza lobby (401 W Summit Hill Dr SW, Knoxville, TN
37902) at 7:00 pm, and we’ll walk to a restaurant (Location TBD).

Saturday, Feb. 23 (University of Tennessee Student Union, Room 377A, 1502 Cumberland Ave, Knoxville, TN 37916)

8:00 am – 8:30 am Breakfast served, Welcome and Announcements: Meeting host: Bonnie Ownley, COIA
Steering Committee Chair, State of COIA

8:30 am – 9:30 am Introductions from COIA members, examples of best practices and questions about how
can faculty senates best interact with athletic departments.

9:30 am – 10:00 am Joe Scogin, Assistant Provost and Associate Athletic Director, Moving Tennessee Athletics
forward on the pillars of Trust, Communication, Warmth, and Intensity: How we have prioritized being
good campus partners.

10:00 am – 10:30 am Don Bruce, Professor and Faculty Athletic Representative, UTK. Navigating challenges
between athletics/faculty /legislature /Board of Trustees: the FAR perspective.

Break 10:30 am – 10:45 am

10:45 am – 11:15 am Jenn Fraser, NCAA Director of Division 1; Binh Nguyen, NCAA Director of Academic and
Membership Affairs; Jennifer Henderson, NCAA Managing Director of Academic and Membership
Affairs. Current Issues in Collegiate Athletics.

11:15 am – 11:45 am Fritz Polite, The Drake Group, Inc. Current Issues in Collegiate Athletics.

11:45 am – 12:15 pm Amy Perko, Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. Current Issues in Collegiate
Athletics.

Lunch served 12:15 pm – 1:30 pm Misty Anderson, Professor and Faculty Senate President, UTK,
Collaborations with Athletics – Faculty Profiles and a Seat at the Table.

1:30 pm – 2:00 pm Ashley Blamey, Director of Title IX, UT System. How will changes in Title IX affect
universities?

2:00 pm – 2:30 pm Tom McMillen, President and CEO of LEAD1 Association, LEAD1 mission and goals in
relation to success and wellness of student athletes.

Break 2:30 pm – 2:45 pm

2:45 pm – 3:15 pm James Williams, Professor and Chair of the Faculty Senate Athletics Committee, UTK,
Professional Development for Athletes.

3:15 pm – 4:15 pm Panel of earlier speakers: How do we build positive relationships and maximize collaboration between Faculty Senates and Athletic Departments: What Works? Moderators Adrien Bouchet and John Putman (COIA Steering Committee)

4:15 pm -5:15 pm Best Practices discussion, what do we do next?
Dinner (on your own)

6:00 pm – 7:30 pm (Location TBD)

Sunday, Feb. 24 (Plant Biotechnology Building, Room 160, 2505 E. J. Chapman Drive)
8:00 am – 10:00 am Breakfast will be available, COIA Business meeting

Registration is $50 by cash or check to cover meals on Saturday

Meals provided: breakfast and lunch on Saturday, and breakfast on Sunday. On Friday and Saturday nights, meals will be on your own, although we will try to meet together or in small groups. If you have food allergies, please let me know.

Transportation: There will be a shuttle van to take you from the Crowne Plaza to locations on campus for the meetings. If you are staying at another location, please let me know so that we can pick you up. We will also use the vans if needed (rain, etc.) to go to local restaurants on Friday and Saturday nights.

Weather: Rain is predicted for Friday (100%), and Saturday (80%), with clouds and a ‘titch’ of sunshine on Sunday. Temperatures will range from 44 to 66 F.

Parking on campus: Please let me know if you need to park a car on campus. 

 Contact information, call or text – Bonnie Ownley 865-300-6997.

Click here for PDF version of agenda

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:

STEERING COMMITTEE (SC) POSITION		Term Expires
Chair		2020
Vice Chair		2020
Secretary		2019
Committee Heads (3):
Administration & Communication		2018
Academic Integrity		2019
Student-Athlete Welfare		2020
At-Large SC Member		2018
At-Large SC Member		2019
Immediate Past Chair*		2020

 * 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:

DATE	ACTION
By April 15, 2017	Senate Presidents and COIA representatives receive for review and comment a few minor changes to the approved, amended bylaws; no substantive changes are being considered at this time.
By May 25, 2017	Those interested in serving on the COIA Steering Committee, please submit a short bio (limit: one page), or, a link to your faculty web page, to Larry Gramling
By June 15, 2017	Deadline for comments from the membership on the proposed minor changes to the bylaws.
By June 15, 2017	Slate of nominated steering committee members released to members for a vote.
On July 15, 2017	Close of vote on steering committee members. Results announced to the membership on July 17, 2017.  (Still pending)
On July 15, 2017	Final suggested changes to the bylaws sent to all members for a vote.  (Still pending)
On November 15, 2017	Close of vote on amendments to by-laws. Results released to membership

 

Welcome Texas State University! At their April, 2017 meeting, the Texas State University Faculty Senate has, by majority vote, agreed to join the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics.  TXST Faculty Senate President Michel Conroy will also serve as the school’s COIA representative.

COIA 2016 Annual Meeting Notes Notes from the 2016 Annual Meeting have been compiled and can be downloaded HERE.

COIA 2015 Annual Report from the Steering Committee The 2015 Annual report has been released and can be downloaded HERE.

COIA statement on the NCAA reorganization plan COIA has released a statement on the NCAA’s reorganization plan. HERE.

Excerpts from the 1929 Carnegie Foundation Report Following the controversial NCAA restructuring approved August 7, 2014, we thought it would be interesting to look at an extremely detailed, analytical report on the state of intercollegiate athletics in 1929.  Looking at the document, it would indeed seem that the more things change, the more they stay the same. COIA Steering Committee member Gary Engstrand (University of Minnesota) put together the following excerpts from that report for us.  His introduction follows: “American College Athletics by Howard Savage, Bulletin Number Twenty-Three of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, was published in 1929 following an extensive study of college athletic programs across the United States.  Five Foundation staff members visited 130 institutions in the late 1920s; the final report was over 300 pages plus appendices.  The excerpts provided here (with the permission of the Carnegie Foundation) are intended to highlight the similarities between the situation in college athletics in the 1920s and college athletics today, nearly 100 years later.” DOWNLOAD THE EXCERPTS HERE.

Letter for Presidents COIA releases Letter for Presidents HERE.

COIA Welcomes New Members Rice University and the University of Akron are the newest members of COIA. An updated membership listing is available as a downloadable spreadsheet HERE.

COIA Concerns A .pdf version of the recent letter sent to NCAA Executive Committee President Lu K. Anna Simon, NCAA D1 Board President Nathan Hatch, and NCAA President Mark Emmert voicing our concerns about the latest NCAA reorganization proposal can be found HERE.

COIA statement on the NCAA Division I Restructuring Override Vote COIA has released a statement on the override vote request: HERE. COIA’s suggested NCAA Mission statement: HERE.

COIA Concussion Survey The report on the recent COIA Concussion Survey, done in cooperation with Brian Hainline, the NCAA’s Chief Medical Officer has been released and is available HERE.

Principles and Proposals Concerning NCAA Division 1 Restructuring COIA Position Paper – October 2013

INCREASING FACULTY ENGAGEMENT IN A DEREGULATED ATHLETICS CONTEXT 2013 COIA Best Practices Report The 2013 National COIA Meeting was devoted to preparing a constructive set of best practices, or a “tool-kit,” specifically designed to increase faculty engagement in the governance of intercollegiate athletics in the context of the new NCAA reform initiatives.  As the only national organization representing elected faculty governance bodies, COIA is uniquely positioned to both develop such a tool kit and then help roll it out at our universities for implementation.  The NCAA leadership has actively participated in this project.  Please click here to read the full draft statement. Also see: Preparing for NCAA Partial Deregulation of Intercollegiate Athletics Ensuring a Faculty Role in a New Regulatory Structure.  Overview of Plenary and Break-Out Group Sessions. COIA National Meeting, February 2-3, 2013.

New COIA Members: Nevada-Las Vegas and U Mass-Amherst COIA is pleased to announce that, by votes of their respective faculty governance bodies, the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst have become the 60th and 61st members of our coalition. A special thanks to Nancy Lough (Professor of Educational Psychology & Higher Education at UNLV and new COIA rep) and Ernest May (Professor of Music and Secretary of the U Mass-Amherst Faculty Senate) for their leadership in making this happen. COIA welcomes its newest members.

COIA/John Curley Center for Sports Journalism articles published in Journal of Intercollegiate Sport Most universities with big-time sports programs have not used all the tools at their disposal to protect academic integrity and improve transparency and accountability of intercollegiate athletics on their campuses, according to a national survey conducted by the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) and researchers at Penn State. Read more about the COIA/Curley Center survey and case studies of six high-scoring institutions… Or download the full articles in the Journal of Intercollegiate Sport at the links below: Integration of Athletics and Academics: Survey of Practices at FBS Schools By John S. Nichols, Thomas F. Corrigan, & Marie Hardin Case Studies in Athletic-Academic Integration: A Closer Look at Schools that Implement COIA’s Best Practices By Thomas F. Corrigan, Marie Hardin, & John S. Nichols The full issue of Journal of Intercollegiate Sport is available here