University Times

Should Pitt’s University Senate join a national coalition of faculty senates advocating comprehensive reform of NCAA Division 1-A athletics?
No – or, at least, not at this time – says the athletics committee of Pitt’s Senate.
Committee members question the motives of the Coalition On Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) and whether the group is going too far in demanding faculty involvement in day-to-day operations of athletics programs.
Pitt Senate athletics committee co-chair William C. Zamboni came to the May 4 meeting of Faculty Assembly (the faculty-only group within Pitt’s Senate system) with a resolution calling on the Assembly to vote against joining COIA and against endorsing its framework for athletics reform.
After hearing Zamboni’s criticisms of COIA, including the coalition’s reported refusal to consider changes to its framework as suggested by new member institutions, several professors spoke in favor of Zamboni’s resolution.
“Obviously, this group [COIA] wants to use us,” said Carey Balaban, a professor of otolaryngology, neurobiology and communication sciences and disorders. Balaban said it would be “absolutely appropriate” for Pitt’s Assembly to reject COIA membership for the time being, and let Zamboni’s committee pass along its criticisms to coalition leaders.
But other Assembly members weren’t so sure that the pros of joining COIA wouldn’t outweigh the cons. Others said they would be uncomfortable spurning an organization whose overall goals they supported.
“I find it ironic,” social work professor Catherine G. Greeno said, “that the Faculty Assembly would go on record as opposing a greater faculty role in ensuring the academic integrity of intercollegiate athletics programs.”
“We think that the Senate should have more of a role in setting other policies at this University,” said Michael E. Goodhart, of political science. “I don’t see why athletics should be excluded.”
After a lengthy discussion, a majority of Assembly members voted to table Zamboni’s resolution.
Zamboni said his committee would renew discussions with COIA leaders, share the committee’s criticisms and seek clarification on questions such as: How are decisions made within the coalition? What would be the next step after joining COIA or endorsing its framework?
As a tabled motion, the athletics committee’s request for a thumbs-down vote on joining COIA is expected to come up again at the next Faculty Assembly meeting, on June 1.

COIA was formed two years ago as an e-mail network of faculty leaders from more than 50 Division I-A schools. During the 2003-04 academic year, COIA has morphed into a coalition of faculty senates from 36 universities with big-time athletics programs, and the group is seeking new members.
So far, the most heavily represented NCAA athletic conferences in the coalition are the Big Ten (senates at eight Big Ten schools, including Penn State, have voted to join COIA) and the South East Conference (seven member schools so far). Rutgers’s senate is the only one at a 2Big East institution to have joined COIA.
According to the COIA web site (http://www.math.umd.edu/~jmc/COIA/COIA-Home.html), the coalition works with the American Association of University Professors, the Association of Governing Boards (a national organization representing college and university trustees), the NCAA and other groups “to promote serious and comprehensive reform of intercollegiate sports; its goal is to preserve and enhance the contributions athletics can make to academic life by addressing longstanding problems in college sports that undermine these contributions.”
Last month, COIA members approved a “Framework for Comprehensive Athletics Reform” calling for greater faculty involvement in addressing what they called “urgent” issues of academic integrity, student-athlete welfare, governance of athletic programs and over-commercialization of intercollegiate athletics. The full text of the framework is available at COIA’s web site.
The Pitt Senate’s athletics committee – after two months of discussions and reviewing COIA documents – recommended against joining the coalition or endorsing COIA’s framework for reform.
“The reasons for this decision varied greatly among the [committee] members,” co-chair Zamboni told Faculty Assembly, “but they focused on the requirements in the COIA framework dealing with the role of faculty in reviewing, or determining, athletic department budgets and policies, as well as their role in selecting the faculty athletic representative” to the NCAA.
Zamboni said his committee was unclear “as to how decisions were made within the COIA. What would be the next step after joining COIA or endorsement of the framework? A primary concern was the lack of information about what endorsement of the framework meant, and if this would be used to convince faculty at other institutions to also endorse it.
“No one had a good sense of what the fundamental motivation of this group was and whether some aspects of the framework would be used to give faculty control of the athletic programs at major universities. No published information is presently being provided on these questions.”
Zamboni said his committee expressed “significant concern” that the COIA framework says faculty should constitute the “chief policy-setting organ” for intercollegiate athletics programs. “There was general agreement that these are the responsibilities of the chancellor at the University of Pittsburgh,” said Zamboni, a pharmacy professor.
(Actually, the COIA framework does not say that the “chief policy-setting organ” should be the faculty. Rather, the framework says that this role should be played at each campus by an “athletics governance committee” comprised of faculty, administrators and students. Also, the framework states that “ultimate authority for athletics governance must lie with university presidents.”)
In any case, as Assembly member Greeno observed, there is “very little danger” that Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg would surrender ultimate authority over Pitt’s athletic program just because Faculty Assembly voted to join COIA.

Zamboni said his committee believes that Pitt “is presently functioning positively both on formal committees and informally in ways consistent with the goals of both the NCAA and COIA, as well as those of the University of Pittsburgh.”
Pitt faculty serve on committees that decide on special admissions to the University and review athletics budgets, said Zamboni. Faculty also serve on the University Athletic Compliance Committee and on other committees that review athletes’ welfare and the academic integrity of Pitt’s athletics program, he said. In addition, faculty have been represented on search committees for Pitt athletic directors and on committees planning recreation and athletic facilities, Zamboni added.
He also noted Pitt’s faculty athletic representative to the NCAA, nursing school Associate Dean Susan Albrecht, chaired the Senate athletics committee before being appointed faculty rep by Chancellor Nordenberg.
“We are certainly concerned if faculty at other Division I schools do not play a similar role at their institutions,” said Zamboni, “as that is an expected part of NCAA policy of university oversight of the athletic programs.”
Greeno pointed out that, while Pitt administrators may listen to faculty opinions, faculty wield no real power on the committees that Zamboni mentioned. “Our role is advisory,” she said.
– Bruce Steele