Athletics finishes evaluation
Jonas Cook has been through the year-long, painstakingly tedious process of evaluating CMU’s athletics department before.
Cook, the associate vice president of Financial Services and Reporting, chaired a steering committee that looked at three main aspects within the department. In 1995-96, CMU’s Division I-A status was evaluated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and Cook chaired a similar steering committee.
He said during the past year the committee looked at equity and welfare, governance and commitment to rules compliance and academic integrity. The Athletics Department’s findings during its year-long study was due to the NCAA Friday.
“We made a series of recommendations and proposals that will be reviewed by the NCAA,” said Derek van der Merwe, associate athletic director in charge of compliance. “As we get closer to the time, the NCAA comes in to take a look at it.”
The NCAA will be on CMU’s campus Sept. 11-13 to see how much progress CMU has made since filing the report and make recommendations for any further improvements.
“I would be surprised if it would be anything that suggested that we should have our Division I-A status revoked,” Cook said. “We run a very good program here. With the staff we have in athletics, it’s just a well-run operation.”
The NCAA mandates that every member institution be evaluated every 10 years.
Field hockey coach Cristy Freese participated in the study and said it helped to shed light on other aspects of the CMU’s athletics program.
“There are a lot of things that I only know for my sport,” she said. “As we have gone through some budget cuts during the last four years, it is always nice to realize how other people have had to sacrifice.”
In 1996, CMU told the NCAA it would add two women’s sports. It added soccer and was very close to adding women’s swimming and diving. However, Cook said neither of the two pools on campus were deep enough for diving and racing.
Cook said adding the sport was not economically feasible because of the amount and cost of work that would have to be done to the facilities.
CMU spent a combined $1,288,000 when it installed FieldTurf in Kelly/Shorts Stadium and built the CMU Field Hockey Complex last summer. Cook said there were people who did not like all the money being thrown to athletics in tight financial times.
“I think you are always going to have folks that challenge the input of financial resources into an athletic program whether on this campus or any other whether there is a good budget environment or a bad budget environment,” Cook said. “There will always be difference of opinion relative to the fund of athletics.”
