Brand proposal gets CIC nod

This weekend, the faculty presidents of the Big Ten schools endorsed a proposal from IU President Myles Brand to reform intercollegiate athletics and create a policy of "Academics First."\nThe PAC-10 conference colleges had already endorsed a similar proposal, also based on Brand's blueprint for reform. The faculty presidents of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation - the academic counterpart of the Big Ten -- discussed the reform as part of a larger meeting.\nThe Bloomington Faculty Council will vote on the resolution at its Dec. 4 meeting after two final points of the resolution have been drafted. Each Big Ten university has the right to accept or decline the policy.\nBloomington Faculty Council President Robert Eno said the policy's objective is to continue the momentum created by the PAC-10 and expand the reform of intercollegiate athletics to other conferences. \n"Twenty years from now we would like to look back to this year and see that some control developed in intercollegiate athletics," Eno said. "We hope that this picks up steam and other Division I conferences adopt this same policy."\nUnder the PAC-10 Resolution, each university's faculty council or senate is urged to adopt a policy to reduce the "arms race" of intercollegiate athletics and focus on student-athletes' academic needs before their athletic status. \n"I was hopeful that people would find that we need to make some reforms academically in the way that athletics is conducted across the country," Brand said Tuesday. "I am not interested in downgrading athletics; let's be clear about that. I like winning teams, and I always root for IU, but I would like to be able to make sure that academic considerations come first. We want students to not only succeed on the field of play, but we want them to graduate. The NCAA has had good rules about this, and I just want to reinforce that."\nBrand's concern is that the "glitz and commercialism" associated with professional sports is making its way into intercollegiate athletics. He said he believes it is inappropriate at the college level.\nBrand said the goal of his policy is to strengthen athletics departments in the Big Ten and at other universities. \nThe call for reform started in a speech Brand gave at the National Press Club; the NCAA News later asked him to write an article on it. He said he was surprised that the PAC-10 and Big Ten schools are modeling their reform movements on his proposal. \n"It's an attempt to strengthen intercollegiate athletics by making sure that it is academically sound and separating it from professional athletics," Brand said. "I am concerned that we make sure that it doesn't get out of hand and that it doesn't turn into professional sports. You have to understand that this is not an isolated instance. There is a national movement going on now for reform in intercollegiate athletics."\nThe CIC resolution outlines three major points. The first point states the importance of athletes as students. It says "academic support structures for athletes must be fully integrated in university-wide programs so that academic expectations and services are as robust for athletes as for other students."\nIt continues on to call for less commercialization of sporting events. It suggests limiting the times and days when games are played, reducing the number of breaks for television commercials, controlling the advertising in sports venues and cutting back on the logos worn by players and coaches. The CIC resolution states the goals of college athletics and commercial sports are different.\nThe last point in the resolution calls for a scaling back of the intercollegiate "arms race." The resolution states that even though winning is the goal of collegiate sports, the value of an athletics program is gauged by what it adds to the university and campus, not by the number of championships it has.