Who are we?

The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) works to help faculty understand changes in requirements, demands, and resources for college athletes. We want to help faculty recognize signs of problems facing student-athletes and understand what faculty members can do if they notice threats to student-athletes’ health or safety.

The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) is an alliance of faculty senates from NCAA Division I 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, and national associations concerned with higher education, to implement these strategies and proposals.


Currently, Division I 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 Division I school can be a member of COIA (see How to Join COIA). We are an ad hoc group and operate without a staff or budget. Our direction is determined by our member senates, and we warmly welcome any NCAA Division I 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.


Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice Statement

We, the steering committee members of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, believe diversity, equity, and inclusion improve the learning environment for all student-athletes and enhance excellence. We support all dimensions of diversity including, including age, race, sex, class, national origin, creed, educational background, religion, gender identity, disability, gender expression, income, marital status, parental status, sexual orientation, and lived experiences. We believe that social justice is a right of all people.