Athletic Department applies for NCAA recertification

University officials expressed confidence that Penn will soon be recertified to compete in Division I athletics. After probing, poking and prodding the Athletic Department for several months, the University says it likes what it sees. Once it mailed the "self-study" of the Athletic Department to the National Collegiate Athletic Association yesterday, the steering committee overseeing the study expressed confidence that the University would be recertified to participate in intercollegiate sports. NCAA inspectors will examine the report before visiting campus April 1-4. The NCAA will decide in June whether to recertify Penn athletics. Because the University holds higher standards than the NCAA in most categories -- including student-athlete eligibility, admissions and financial aid -- the report itself is not controversial. Nevertheless, a look at a near-final version of the self-study -- as published in Almanac in December and presented at a University Board of Trustees meeting last week -- helps illuminate exactly what goes on in Weightman Hall. Perhaps most interesting are the sections entitled "equity" and "academic integrity." "Equity" addressed women's and minority issues. Several years after settling a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination in its intercollegiate sports, the University has allocated an additional $500,000 for women's athletics, the study says. Athletic Director Steve Bilsky said this money was taken from regular University funds. According to the report, it is being spent on recruitment, travel, salary increases, public-relations employees and fundraising employees. Alumni have also donated money to women's sports, including $200,000 in 1994 for capital expenses. Additionally, the report examines minorities in University athletics. While the department denies using any "matriculation goals" in recruiting minorities, it boasts a minority student-athlete population that reflects the minority student population at the University. Coaching and administration is a different story. The committee says these employees do not reflect the racial makeup of the University. To remedy this imbalance -- and to meet University and federal requirements -- the Athletic Department has been conducting "special-effort searches," according to the report. Vice President for Finance Stephen Golding, who chaired the self-study steering committee, described procedures for such a search. "I want to bring in an African American. So I pick up the phone and say, 'Who are the 10 best African Americans?' It's no different from what we do with faculty," Golding said. The minority section also features a paragraph on "academic and social support to minority students," including "special counseling, tutoring, residential and pre-professional programs." There is no analogous paragraph in the section on women's sports. The report also focuses on athletes' academic qualifications. Athletes are admitted to and graduate from the University at approximately the same rate as the rest of the student body, the self-study concludes. But 15 percent of each incoming class is "admitted in a special admissions category." These include alumni, "development cases," poor students and athletes. Over one quarter of athletes are "special admits," the report says. The self-study also reasserts the University's prohibition on athletic scholarships. While many committee members take pride in the prohibition, some athletic administrators feel handicapped by it. "[The policy] has to be looked at at some point," Bilsky said. "The Ivy League has done a great job in keeping [academics and athletics] in balance. [But] we shouldn't kid ourselves" that competition doesn't matter, he added. The report also stressed programs designed to give student-athletes academic and career counseling, tutoring and alumni mentoring. Most are run by the University's Department of Academic Support Programs and are available to non-athletes. One academic service limited to athletes is laptop computer rentals. Last semester the department used alumni donations to buy 15 laptops, which traveling athletes can rent for free. After a slow September and October, in which only 12 students used the computers, the machines have steadily gained users. Seventy students have borrowed laptops since September, Assistant Athletic Director Robert Koonce said. When athletes must travel, the Athletic Department takes care to schedule competitions around classes. "Penn conforms to all [Ivy] League expectations and student-athlete schedules rarely create conflict with exams, coursework or other academic activities," the report says. But athletes must sometimes use "class excuse letters" when a conflict arises. Koonce said he writes between 250 and 300 of these passes each year. Finally, a section on "Governance" noted that the department will try to rely less on University money by increasing fundraising and corporate-sponsorship efforts.