Conference Carolinas FAR Meeting Minutes

June 1, 2007 Belmont Abbey College, Belmont NC

Present: Jim Carson (Lees-McRae), Martin Harris (Belmont Abbey), Brenda Cates (Mount Olive), Kristi Pope Key (St. Andrews), Mark Kelso (Queens), Art Gorka (Erskine), Madelyn Young (Converse), Jackie Walker (Anderson), Jack Ingram (Pfeiffer).

Meeting called to order at 9:20 AM by Art Gorka, chair.

After approving the minutes from the previous meeting, Art gave a report from the Executive Committee.

Report from Executive Committee

-Sportsmanship initiative. The initiative appears to be succeeding despite an increase in soccer ejections. The higher number of ejections have been attributed to a new set of officials who were expecting more sportsmanship and perhaps were a little tougher in their judgments. It is thought that players will adjust to the expectations in the future. In other sports things look good. The question was asked if the same trend appeared for both men & women’s soccer, and Art reported that yes, that seemed to be the case.

-Appeals. Recently an incident after a game caused the St. Andrews baseball team to be suspended from playing tournaments by the college president. A conference bylaw says anyone suspended from playing in a tournament cannot take part in tournaments for the next 3 years. St. Andrews asked for an appeal under these circumstances, and the executive committee approved the appeal. The committee also heard an appeal from Jordan Cudney, a student at St. Andrews who is transferring to Belmont Abbey. He requested waiving the conference policy that says he cannot play for a year after transferring from one conference school to another. The committee rejected the appeal on the grounds that the proper protocol was not followed. Before hearing the appeal, the student must obtain a release from St. Andrews, and then have Belmont Abbey make a request to waive the policy in his particular case.

-Financial report. The conference is in the black with an income of $11,000. The topic of commissioners’ salaries was to be discussed this in other committees (FAR, etc.). Each group was asked to come up with 2 or 3 goals for the commissioners. At this time no job descriptions exist for the commissioners, and goal setting would help with that problem. Brenda pointed out that the revision of the conference strategic plan included a number of goals for the commissioners, including the last page which dealt specifically with marketing and branding goals. Art thought that some things might have changed since then since the conference Presidents had expressed the feeling that it might be best for the presidents to find local contacts, rather than the commissioner. There was a suggestion for an increase in salaries for commissioners: 7.5% for Melissa, 6.3% for Brooke, and 4.8% for Alan. These increases are based on productivity and a comparison conducted two years ago for other Division II commissioners. Alan’s salary was lowest in this comparison. The conference hopes to make its remuneration more competitive. It is thought that replacement costs also justify the raise. The FARs have the most contact with Melissa and there was widespread committee agreement that Melissa was worth every penny.

FAR fellows institute October 5-7

Last year our conference was one of only 2 who sent no one to the institute. Expectation is high this year that we will send someone. Brenda is on the steering committee. Last year many new FARs attended, but it is really meant for “more seasoned” FARs. The institute also offers leadership training. A $150 stipend is provided, and the NCAA pays for everything. Attendees have the opportunity to meet with the NCAA VP for Division II, and really get a feel for the issues that face Division II schools. Kristi Key from St. Andrews and Richard Lee from Barton will be attending from our conference.

Murphy Osborne award

The committee’s feeling was that things seemed to go well this year with our electronic submission of materials. Unfortunately, Richard had to pay $5 out of his own pocket for hosting on his own site. There was unanimous agreement that the conference needs to set up electronic submission for the award on the conference web server. This year Pfeiffer made the award during a campus-wide program at midday on a Friday. Neither Murphy nor Alan were there, and there was no athletic banquet at Pfeiffer this year. It’s not clear if either Murphy or Alan were invited to the presentation. The committee felt that an invitation should be extended to the commissioner and Murphy for the award presentation at the winning school, but it was acknowledged that this is a chaotic time (end of Spring semester). Melissa would like for us to provide more details on the winner to the conference office after our selection of a winner. It was decided that in the future the chair of the FAR committee should collect the signed forms from the submitting schools prior to the judging (fax, mail, or scanned document) and then send the materials for the winner on to Melissa.

Coaches re-certification test

Certification expires on July 31. There was discussion about the Compliance Assistance Internet program and how useful it was for filling out ASR & APC for NCAA compliance. Compliance is mandated by 2011.

New Business

-Conflict of Interest Policy was reviewed. It had been recommended from the external audit conducted earlier. The FARs endorsed the policy.

-Converse College Membership. Converse College has been a conference associate for 1-2 years and the time has come for a final vote. The FARs felt that adding Converse to the conference was a good idea. “They have been well behaved” - Martin.

-New Officers. Starting in the fall, the secretary will become the chair, and alphabetically Alex of Limestone will slide into the secretary slot. New chair (Jim) and old chair (Art) will move to the executive committee.

Finally, the committee set two goals for the conference administrators:

Goal 1. - Set up Murphy Osborne electronic submission process on the conference website, insuring user-friendliness.

Goal 2. - Present the Murphy Osborne award at the local campus ceremony of the winner. Since it is such a crazy time of year, it would be helpful if administrators would take the responsibility of contacting the institution of the award winner and make arrangements to attend the award presentation.

Meeting adjourned at 10:43 AM.

Respectfully submitted, Jim Carson