The NCAA is the governing body for collegiate athletics, but their role in academic probes involving sports teams is need of some definition.
According to the Associated Press, 20 school presidents and athletic department officials are designing a proposal to clarify the NCAA's role in academic investigations. The committee plans to have a concrete proposal by July.
In Jan., NCAA enforcement chief Jon Duncan said the organization was investigating 20 cases of alleged academic misconduct. The NCAA initially opened an investigation into the false classes at the University of North Carolina (UNC) - Chapel Hill in 2011, but reopened it recently when new information became available.
"On the surface it seems like it should change, however, what we all hear from campuses is that the courses offered, curriculum, majors, rigor, etc. are an institutional or campus department matter," Kim Durand, associate athletic director for student development at the University of Washington, told the AP. "Institutional autonomy should reign."
Rod McDavis, president of Ohio University and chairman of the NCAA's committee on academics, echoed the sentiment, telling the AP the NCAA will need to rely on schools for these academic investiagtions.
UNC wound up commissioning their own investigation headed by a third party. The NCAA is far more well known for investigating athletic department matters like recruiting and players' amateur status.
"If you have a case where an egregious act has happened, but (if) the student-athlete is being redshirted or blows out his or her knee and doesn't compete for you that year or doesn't need those credits to make themselves eligible, then there is not an NCAA violation," Durand said. "If I'm looking for guidance from the NCAA manual on what steps I need to take and where this falls under, I may have to look at three, maybe four different places in the manual.
"So that's confusing."
