an alliance of faculty senates working for college sports reform     

  Framework for Intercollegiate Athletics Reform  (2003)

Campus Athletics Governance, the Faculty Role:  Principles, Proposed Rules, and Guidelines (April 2004)

  VOTING DRAFT                       VOTING DRAFT 

Academic Integrity in Intercollegiate Athletics:
Principles, Proposed Rules, and Guidelines

(February 2005)

About the Coalition

The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) was formed in 2002.  COIA is an alliance of faculty senates, welcoming membership from all Division IA schools.  It seeks to become a faculty voice in the national debate over the future of college sports.  The Coalition functions through a Steering Committee, nominated by faculty leaders of schools in their conferences, and through ongoing communication with its membership.

     COIA 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 those contributions.

     A detailed description of COIA's founding goals is set forth in the Framework for Intercollegiate Athletics Reform.  This document remains an overall view of the Coalition's objectives, but detailed refinements of COIA's positions are being developed in a series of policy papers, dealing with athletics governance, admissions and scholarship issues, and the protection of academic integrity in college sports programs.

     In early 2004, Coalition leaders, in consultation with the leadership of the national Faculty Athletics Representatives Association, drafted Campus Athletics Governance the Faculty Role: Principles, Proposed Rules, and Guidelines.  After a process of discussion and amendment, that document was adopted in April 2004 as a Coalition policy recommendation for Division IA. 

    The Coalition membership met at Vanderbilt University, January 6-7, 2005, to discuss a proposed document concerning the relationship between athletics and academics: Academic Integrity in Intercollegiate Athletics:  Principles, Proposed Rules, and Guidelines.  Representatives of 26 of the then 44 member schools attended, and endorsed a document for final review and comment by the full membership.  The membership has further amended the document to the current "Voting Draft"; a vote on adoption will be conducted during March.  Initial drafts of this document were developed in consultation with members of the leaderships of the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletes and The Drake Group; neither group endorses all proposals in the document, but we have benefited greatly from their contributions.