DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Bethune-Cookman University Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Lynn W. Thompson has been playing a key role in the NCAA's program to compensate its member institutions for their academic performance.
Serving on one the NCAA's most important committees, his work on the Committee on Academics oversees the development of the Academic Performance Program, which includes the academic performance rate that ranks the APR scores of each university by team and also by coach.
As a result of the negotiation of the new NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament television contract, the NCAA has created additional means of redistributing revenue to Div. I member institutions who are making the grade academically, and Thompson is a part of the think tank helping to create the methodology to do so.
Thompson, the longest-serving NCAA Division I Director of Athletics in America, addressed the NCAA National Convention in Orlando, Fla., as part of a blue-ribbon panel, last week providing an update on how the program will begin distributing revenues in the 2019-20 academic year based on earned Academic Units.
The Academic Unit will be worth a set amount of dollars and will be distributed annually to institutions who have met one of three criteria:
- APR for previous year of 985 or higher
- Graduation Success Rates of 90 percent or higher
- Difference between student-athlete and student-body rates for most recently published Federal Graduation Rates is at least 13 percentage points
The program has gone through trial runs the past two academic years in preparation for the 2019-20 roll out, and eligible programs could earn approximately $55,678 the first year and up to $487,928 by 2026-27.
According to projections, BCU is amongst the institutions who will earn the Academic Unit.
"In the past, individual coaches and program success was defined by W's (wins) and L's (losses)," Thompson said. "Now, in addition to W's and L's, we're also defining success by D's and F's. We can't win every championship, but we can affect all of our student-athletes in a positive way."
Thompson hopes that institutions use the revenues to strengthen and reward their academic advisor areas, in addition to reinvesting in the programs that continue to make the grade annually on campus, including collaboration with the academic stakeholders on campus.
"It will allow the other side of the house to come into play," Thompson said. "Instead of just issuing blame, we're giving credit and rewarding those who have been serving as mentors who may be going unnoticed."