The Chronicle of Higher Education August 6, 2010 Making the Grade By Libby Sander<http://chronicle.com/blogAuthor/Players/23/Libby-Sander/41/> Head coaches hold significant sway over the athletes on their teams. So why not hold those coaches accountable for the academic performance of the athletes they recruit? After a year and a half<http://chronicle.com/article/NCAA-to-Develop-Another-Ac/1461/> of tinkering, officials of the NCAA have rolled out a new database<http://web1.ncaa.org/coachAprSearch/exec/searchSelectAction?searchSelectActionSubmit=Start> that they hope will accomplish just that. The first-ever Head Coach APR Portfolio, as the data set is called, includes single-year academic-progress rates<http://web1.ncaa.org/maps/cVbnp9TaprRelease.jsp>-the NCAA's metric for gauging how well a team does in the classroom<http://chronicle.com/article/Athletes-Academic-Performa/65846/>-for head coaches in six Division I sports. (The database will be expanded to include the rates for head coaches in all NCAA sports at the conclusion of the 2010-11 academic year.) The academic-progress rate, which is now in its sixth year, assigns scores to all Division I teams based in large part on the retention rates and academic eligibility of their athletes. The new "portfolio" for coaches, available to the public on the NCAA's Web site<http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/home/index.html> in a searchable format, shows the single-year team scores for each program a coach has led, dating back to 2003-4. The NCAA will update the database every spring when it releases new academic-progress rates for teams. Unlike the academic-progress rate for athletes, which can trigger penalties for some teams that fail to achieve a certain score, the new mechanism for coaches carries no threat of punishment. Instead, NCAA officials say, it is intended only to increase the transparency of head coaches' academic priorities and aid recruits and their families, as well as athletic directors and college presidents, in evaluating how seriously a coach takes academics. "Some people say these rates are unfair, that coaches can't control what an athlete does or doesn't do," said Walter Harrison, president of the University of Hartford and chairman of the NCAA's Committee on Academic Performance, which created the database. "Coaches are the primary influencers of their student-athletes, and they're already held accountable for the success on the field or court," said Harrison, speaking this afternoon during a conference call with reporters. "These new rates extend that accountability to the classroom as well." SANDRA M. PHOENIX Program Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 404.592.4820 1438 West Peachtree Street NW Suite 200 Atlanta, GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (Lyrasis) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children. Register now http://www.hbculibraries.org/html/meeting-form.html for the October 24-26, 2010 HBCU Library Alliance 4th Membership Meeting and the "Conference on Advocacy" pre-conference in Montgomery, AL. The Pre-Conference and Membership meeting are open to directors and other librarians.