An alliance of faculty senates working for intercollegiate sports reform  

COIA Membership Info

     The COIA is an alliance of Division 1A faculty senates focusing on intercollegiate sports reform. The COIA was formed in 2002 to link representative faculty governance on many campuses and articulate a cohesive faculty voice on athletics reform at the national level.  To date, 56 of the 114  Division 1A faculty senates have joined the COIA (see COIA current membership list). We have partnered with the NCAA, the Association of Governing Bodies (AGB), the Knight Commission, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the National Athletic Academic Advisors Association (N4A),  the Division 1A Faculty Athletics Representatives, the Faculty Athletics Representatives Association (FARA), the College Sports Project and other national groups in searching for ways to address problems in intercollegiate athletics and help college sports achieve their full potential as educational enhancements for athletes and campuses.

      We are an ad hoc group and operate without staff or budget. Our direction is determined by our member senates, and we warmly welcome any Division IA senate that votes to join the COIA on the basis of a general agreement with the principles  laid out in our 7 policy papers and reports adopted over the past five years.  These are:

1) The COIA Charter (2003);

2) Framework for Intercollegiate Athletics Reform (2003);

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

4) Academic Integrity in Intercollegiate Athletics: Principles, Proposed Rules, and Guidelines (2005);

5) A Report to the NCAA Presidential Task Force (2005);

6) A Report to the NCAA Working Group to review initial eligibility trends (2006); and,

7) Framing the Future: Reforming Intercollegiate Athletics (2007).

      There are no obligations to membership in the COIA; there are no dues, and participation in our annual meetings is completely voluntary.  We encourage and hope for active participation  from all our members. We do not require lockstep agreement – indeed no single member senate agrees with every one of the many proposals and best practice standards the Coalition membership has adopted.  We work through flexible consensus, guided by values and principles as set forth in our policy papers and reports.

     Member senates appoint a COIA representative to be a liason between the COIA and the faculty senate. This may or may not be the current senate president/chair. The institutional COIA representative receives all COIA communications and is strongly encouraged to participate in our on-line discussions and annual meetings.  If the COIA representative is not the current faculty senate president/chair, the latter also receives all COIA information and is welcome to participate in all COIA discussions.

     For additional information, please feel free to contact our three current co-chairs,  Professor Carole Browne (Wake Forest), Professor Joe Kotarba (Houston) and Professor Nathan Tublitz (Oregon).