FAYETTEVILLE -- University of Arkansas faculty agreed Wednesday to wait until next month before deciding on whether to continue as members of a national organization founded to give university professors a voice on issues relating to college sports.
The postponement means any vote will take place after the annual meeting of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, said Tom Jensen, a marketing professor and the UA Faculty Senate representative to the group. The meeting is scheduled to take place Feb. 17-19 at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.
"There's been a lot of communication going on, and [I'm] expecting some changes to occur," Jensen said.
The UA Faculty Senate unanimously approved his motion to delay the vote.
John Pijanowski, an educational leadership professor and chairman of the UA Faculty Senate, at last month's meeting said the coalition had "drifted substantially."
Faculty leadership groups from 64 institutions make up the organization, but Pijanowski said last month that a few people at times made decisions on behalf of the entire group.
Nathan Tublitz, a former co-chair of the national coalition often referred to as COIA, said in a phone interview that he would be sad if UA pulled out of the group, which began in 2002.
"They were one of the founding members of COIA," Tublitz said.
He credited the organization with providing input to the NCAA for its Academic Progress Rate, which was implemented in 2003 as a way to track students' academic eligibility and retention as well provide some measure of accountability for schools.
A low rate can result in penalties for teams that fail to reach certain benchmarks.
"I can't say COIA has changed the landscape of intercollegiate athletics, but I think it has provided a voice and a point of view that has not been heard, and it offsets the commercialistic point of view that one often hears," said Tublitz, a professor of biology and neurobiology at the University of Oregon.
Richard Southall, a University of South Carolina professor who studies the governance structure and business side of college sports, said in a phone interview that he has "a great deal of respect" for COIA's mission.
But the idea that faculty have influence on major college athletics is misguided, he said.
"The decisions on big-time college sports are made by the 'Power Five' conference commissioners, athletic directors who are making the schedules and making the contracts, and by the corporate sponsors and the television networks," Southall said.
The informal term 'Power Five' refers to athletic conferences -- including the Southeastern Conference, where UA competes -- that under an NCAA governance model approved in 2014 have greater autonomy to make certain rules or, in other matters, greater voting power than other conferences.
Metro on 02/09/2017