Real deal, or the next Rice?

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This blog post is now closed. New discussion should take place on the follow-up post.

A couple of years ago about this time there was speculation flying as to whether Rice was going to move up from Division I to Division III.

This year, it’s Birmingham-Southern. Described as the smallest school in Division I by columnist Ray Melick of The Birmingham (Ala.) News, the school is said to be looking at Division III and is expected to decide by the end of May.

To Birmingham-Southern, we say: Welcome. Division III is a great place to be. We hope you choose to become part of the biggest subdivision in collegiate athletics, where the true amateur athlete calls home, where an institution can truly feel good about its mission.

With 1,381 full-time undergraduates, the private liberal arts college fits the profile of Division III nicely. And Division III is slowly gaining ground in the Southeast, Birmingham-Southern will not be off on an island.

And it would save almost $3.5 million in athletics aid alone, according to the column.

Of course, Rice flirted with Division III a couple of springs ago and ended up scaring up enough cash with all the publicity to remain in Division I, with I-A football. But Rice is more than twice as big as Birmingham-Southern.

43 thoughts on “Real deal, or the next Rice?”

  1. We publicly went through this dance with Tulane in 2003 or 04. It was agonizing, especially since a move to D3 was being used more as a threat (“give us money or we may drop down to D3”) than as a brilliant solution to the grave financial problems the athletic department had (and still has.)

    The administration justified their (preordained) decision to stay in D1A in part by saying that big-time sports brought name recognition which in turn increased applications. Great. Tulane, which once was one of the finest universities in the world, now depends on its crummy football team to drum up applications. Then: I’m going to Tulane, because their School of Tropical Medicine is unparalleled! Now: I’m going to Tulane, because they played in the Hawai’i Bowl!

    Another reason they gave was that scholarship athletes made up a hugely disproportionate percentage of the minority students enrolled at the school. Thus, the logic goes, if you do away with athletic scholarships, diversity suffers. How many holes in that outrageous argument can you find, gentle reader?

    I also encourage Birmingham-Southern to make the right decision, but if they decide (or already have decided) to stay in D1, I hope they at least have better reasons than did my alma mater.

  3. I’d say that B-S is likely very serious about moving up to D3. David Pollick, their president, was earlier president at LVC and is thus familiar with and sympathetic to the workings of the NCAA’s highest division.

  4. A good part of the rationale for not moving up to D3 at Rice and Tulane might be that they are football-playing institutions. Rightly or not, football is perceived by many, including powerful alumni and donors and influential trustees, as THE sport, and moving to D3 might be seen by such ilk as institutional failure. (The heads of university presidents have rolled for far less.)

    Fortunately, perhaps, B-S doesn’t have the “problem” of intercollegiate football.

  5. Ray Melnick has not researched Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport, enrollment 1040 according to Carnegie numbers, endowment $112M, a member of the Mid-Continent Conference, you know Chicago State, IUPUI, Southern Utah, Oral Roberts, Valpo, etc.

    The move by Birmingham-Southern would make sense, especially if it were to change the campus paradigm, by adding sports! In the South, IMHO, that would mean football, and BSC has a football field.

    http://www.tiftonsoillab.com/html/university___college_football_.html

    However, the other new sports that the new D3 athletic budget might afford would be Men’s and Women’s LAX and Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving and maybe even Field Hockey in the future. Would they need to drop Women’s Rifle (a D-1 sport)?

    Birmingham-Southern has a tradition of football, e.g., these games against Auburn before WWII.

    http://content.lib.auburn.edu/cgi-bin/browseresults.exe?CISOROOT=%2Ffootball

    As for the conference fit, BSC has a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa and the endowment is $114M. That suggests the SCAC. The alums might look quite favorably on peers of DePauw, Trinity, Rhodes, Centre and Sewanee. The eastern location is surely coveted by the “Eastern” Division teams. That would give possible travel partners of DPU/Centre, Sewanee/Oglethorpe, BSC/Millsaps on IH-20.

    Voila! The SCAC is at 12 teams!

    Were I the SCAC, I would do it in a minute!

  7. One other quesiton about the NCAA bureaucracy…

    Would the NCAA really make a D1 program such as Birmingham-Southern really wait in line for a lottery slot to move up to D3? They already have the NCAA compliance infrastructure in place. (It is not like they are moving from a different legislative body such as the NJCAA, the NCCAA, the NAIA or the USCAA.)

    What is the shortest time that the NCAA would permit BSC to remain D3 provisional? Three years, if all scholarship athletes were gone? The standard 4 years? The 5-year exploratory plus provisional track?

    Maybe my exuberance at seeing a D1 move up to D3 clouded the realism of the situation.

    Oh well, we D3fans would like to have you, BSC Panthers!

    Come on up!

  8. No, there would be no lottery process in this instance. The lottery is only for schools looking to enter the NCAA. Schools within the NCAA can reclassify between divisions starting the next academic year.

    I do not know if they would qualify for a fast track (faster than four) or not.

  9. To start: I’ve spent time as a student and as an staff member at the JUCO, Division III and Divison I levels, so I have a bit of a unique perspective on the college experience.

    My concern is this: can we please stop calling it a move “up” to Division III for BSC? I realize there’s an awful lot of venon around these parts for all things Division I, but in all aspects, it’s a step down. It’s a step down in the quality of play, and it’s a step down in terms of media attention. In Birmingham, they’re already at least number four (and perhaps farther down on the totem pole) in terms of coverage from the Birmingham News behind Alabama, Auburn and UAB. Dropping down to Division III would drop them even farther below the likes of Samford and Alabama A&M. The amount of media coverage they’d receive would go from miniscule to non-existent. To me, that was the crux of Melnick’s column – the drop in public perception and awareness with a move to Division III – out of sight, out of mind.

    Dropping down would likely cost the athletic department money – the $3.5 million quoted in the story doesn’t technically belong to athletics, it belongs to the school’s financial aid department. A drop to Division III would simply mean that those funds would be redistributed.

    In response to dcollinge’s comments about Tulane, I think there is some validity to the school’s comments about diversity suffering with a cut of athletic scholarships. Any educator can tell you that scholarship in inner-city schools – especially in the deep south – is seriously below most college admission standards. If athletics is the avenue that gets that student into school and into a higher standard of living, then so much the better.

    Given the number of schools in the region, their travel costs would rise substantially as they’d be forced to drive longer distances to find games. If they’re located in the midwest or in the northeast, where there are more schools in a smaller area, then maybe this might make more sense. But how can the school justify moving down in a cost-cutting effort, yet then turn around and add sports? Adding sports produces more additional costs in additional coaches, athletic trainers, game-day personnel and sports information staff.

    Contrary to popular belief, dropping down to Division III is NOT the solution for a program’s financial problems. A great many Division III programs are currently operating in the red – mostly because they’re under-funded in the first place.

    I realize this is a Division III forum, but I wish that some people would realize that D3 is not for everyone. Larger schools can often provide, simply by the nature of the size of the school, better academic and athletic facilities and better faculty than smaller ones can.

    Division III has its place in the hierarchy of the college experience. Unfortunately, the point some people miss is that not everyone’s place is in Division III.

  10. It’s moving up because its not about money or media coverage. It’s about providing a place for true amateur athletic competition.

    BSC wasn’t getting a whole lot of athletics related revenue to begin with. You could make those claims at schools where the athletic department is totally supported by tv deals and boosters, but ever for many small d1 schools, most of it is coming from general budgets.

    Plenty of high profile and fairly large schools operate just fine in d3. We know its a step up because the d3 philosophy requires thinking on a different level about many of these issues.

  11. gbp0013 makes a number of good points above. Indeed, “D3 is not for everyone.” (Conversely, D1 is also not for everyone.)

    As to “moving up/moving down” … many D3 fans use this as a rhetorical device to show our pride in D3 competition and as a way of distinguishing it from what the big-timers assay to accomplish. Call it a “pride of place” thing, if you will.

  12. Gbp0013, thanks for the very cogent post. I will appreciate other responses, but I wish to begin this discussion with some changes in perspectives.

    Having sent 2 daughters from Dallas, TX to Auburn (War Eagle!), I really understand SEC football now. (THE Game is only 6 months from tomorrow!) Is BSC really competing against AU, UA, UAB and even Troy? Respectfully, no one takes the I-AA Big South as serious competition, but only as that first round victory in March Madness (and don’t mess up my bracket by losing that game!) In an era of electronic/web based media, D3 has had a chance to break the print monopoly on sources of entertainment and sports information to the BSC and D3 communities thru vehicles such as this one.

    The change in the allocation of the Student Aid funds might better meet the goals of the Board of Trustees. Would the change from D1-AA (non-football) to D3 permit the university address the vision of the university is the question that the Board must consider.

    When Austin College moved from the American Southwest Conference to the Southern Collegiate AC, the travel expenses were manageable from their endowment which is slightly more than BSC’s. Travel for BSC in the SCAC would not likely be worse, if they were accepted into the new 2-division SCAC that is projected the arise. Non-conference games can be scheudled with the GSAC members, USAC schools and with Emory. A 25-game basketball schedule can very easily be filled with SCAC members and South Region D3 opponents which are within the “footprint” of the current Big South Conference.

    The idea of adding sports is the equation that has seen many D3 schools add football to increase the number of males attending the schools and finanacing the department on the incremental revenue from the new students. Lacrosse is one “new” vehicle to achieve that as the sport moves off the East Coast. As for adding swimming, is there a higher average GPA among its athletes than among the swimmers?

    As for the diversity question, how many students in the target ethnic groups will you actually lose by no longer awarding “athletic” scholarships? The bigger barrier to gaining admission to BSC seems to be in academic qualification.

    More than eighty percent of D1 athletic programs are losing money. As revenues go up, athletic departemtns find new ways to spend it.

    My perception of the question that faces the BSC Board is whether they are succeeding in their mission to compete against Auburn, ‘Bama, Troy, UAB, UA Huntsville, Alabama A&M, Alabama State in sports? Has the failure of BSC to grow to the size of Liberty or the financial challenges to compete against state schools such as UNC Asheville worsened? Does the Board see a new mission for BSC? BSC is the only Big South school that I find with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter (Beta of Alabama, 1937).

    http://www.pbk.org/affiliate/chapterdir.htm

    In that respect, the SCAC schools are truly their peers.

    Those of us who like the concept of the amateur student-athlete will always see D3 as the pinnacle of that experience.

    I have chose to address and elucidate the strategy that I think would make with the acceptance of a move by BSC from D1-AA to D3 more likely in the BSC community. If Richard Scrushy doesn’t pull his “HealthSouth” money from the baseball field, then BSC has one of the finest facilites in D3, and likewise BSC has gone from the bottom half of the D1 facilites question to among the finest in the D3.

    They already compete at the top in Academics.

    http://www.bsc.edu/communications/news/accolades/default.htm

    I would suggest that D3 is the place in the academic-athletic hierarchy for BSC.

  13. There’s also the who think about adding two “I”s to the DI (and thus “increasing” the number) that justifies calling it moving up. The number is higher, you can’t argue that, and higher means moving up!!

  14. “Division III has its place in the hierarchy of the college experience. Unfortunately, the point some people miss is that not everyone’s place is in Division III.”

    Who has said that? I have never advocated that large state schools move up from D-I to D-III. In this instance, I am advocating that a small liberal-arts college join insitutions with which it has a lot in common.

  15. Yeah, it’s a bit difficult to imagine Nebraska, Texas, Notre Dame, and Southern Cal playing amateur football …. 😉

  16. But the only reason its difficult to imagine is because of the money generated and that is a sad explanation of “amateur sports” in this country.

  17. I realize I’ve stirred up the hornet’s nest, so I’ll try to address things one-by-one…

    Hoopsfan-
    “Plenty of high profile and fairly large schools operate just fine in d3. We know its a step up because the d3 philosophy requires thinking on a different level about many of these issues.”
    — I’m not saying they don’t operate just fine. I do, however, have a major problem with the belief that the D3 mentality is the “correct” one, that it’s for the “true student-athlete.” In my experience, I’ve found that more class time is missed at the D3 level than at the D1 (in terms of non-basketball and football sports). Baseball games are played mid-week and often on fields without lights, meaning they must start around 2 or 3 to finish before dark – that’s requiring one team to leave often before noon to make a contest. Same thing happens with soccer in the fall. On the D1 level, almost all soccer games are played on Friday/Sunday, thereby minimizing games missed.

    Ralph-
    — I appreciate your thoughts on the subject. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing for BSC to move to D3, just that if they’re expecting all of their problems to disappear by making the switch, then they’re in for a pretty major shock. I also think the backlash from making the move as a cost-cutting measure, only to turn around and add more sports, would be the type of thing that people lose their jobs over.

    Pat-
    “Who has said that? I have never advocated that large state schools move up from D-I to D-III. In this instance, I am advocating that a small liberal-arts college join insitutions with which it has a lot in common.”
    — I never said you did advocate any type of switch. It’s the vibe I get from reading a lot of other comments – not yours, you have always done a solid job – that make it seem like anyone who attends a Division I school is equivalent to the anti-christ and isn’t a true amateur athlete.

    In terms of the power of the media, I first heard about BSC a few years back when they were the subject of several of Andy Katz’s articles on ESPN.com – back when they were without a conference and hoping their stellar record – something like 23-5 – would get them into the NCAA Tournament. I also recall their struggles to get into the Big South. I’m a northerner, and I know that I would not have been familiar with the school without that exposure.

    The fact is that Division III athletics isn’t what it was 20 years ago. Gone are the days where a student can pick a school and walk on to a team. Most every athlete is recruited, all to the same extent that Division I athletes are.

    There’s also the argument of whether or not college athletes should be paid. They’re representing the university and are generating exposure for the school in 90 percent of the cases among all divisions. While I do not think they should be paid for their time and effort, I favor the approach of “paying” them in the form of an education. Under the current system, D3 athletes are being exploited.

    I’m not trying to change anyone’s opinion here. I’m simply frustrated with the standard company line about D3 athletics being “truer” than D1. Obviously, there’s the exceptions at the major, BCS schools, but there’s just as many true “student-athletes” at the typical low- and mid-major Division I programs.

  18. It’s not the student-athlete part I object to, its the fact that big d-1 programs still think they are working with amateur athletes. I know, for the most part, athletes, even at the big schools work hard and study hard. It’s still the money thing for me.

    I’m not saying anyone who isn’t d3 isn’t legitimate, but to me it is the purest form of collegiate athletics out there.

  19. gbp0013:

    I see no “hornet’s nest.”* But you have engendered some interesting discussion.

    ————————–

    * However, apparently there’s a hornet’s nest now down at B-SC involving the president and trustees on one side and a good many students on t’other.

  20. gbp0013, were this discussion on the message boards, you would be racking up the good karma for genuine debate.

    My alma mater, McMurry, gave up NAIA-1 Scholarship Lone Star Conference Athletics in 1971, back when the LSC had Pro Bowlers Harvey Martin and LC Greenwood playing against the likes of future NFL QB Wade Wilson. Oh, the angst and wailing and gnashing of teeth when Dr Kim told us that that was coming down! We wandered the non-scholarship wilderness of lower NAIA-2 from 1972 to the creation of the ASC in 1996. D3 has been great for us.

    I don’t doubt that the transition may be tough. When Hardin-Simmons left non-football D1 in 1990, they added football and have had a successful athletic program ever since, with the migration thru the last days in NAIA-2 back to NCAA as a D3. That is why I am encouraging the Board to change the paradigm. Only school with a 1300 member student body, the $3M has to be about 10% of the budget that gets realigned. That is huge! Change the paradigm! Your alums will relate to what you are trying to accomplish.

    BSC has only been NCAA for 7 years. Look at the history of BSC athletics before the move to D1 seven seasons ago… 4 men’s and 2 women’s sports.

    http://www.bscsports.net/Sports/gen/2005/history.asp

    Thanks for the dialogue, gbp0013

  23. From the second link you posted, Ralph, I found this graph interesting:

    “While Birmingham-Southern prides itself on its academic reputation, the school offers only a handful of full-ride scholarships based on academic merit. In athletics, it offers 44 full rides, and a total of 116 scholarships.”

    I don’t know of many private schools that offer all that many academic merit scholarships. Princeton and Stanford offer none. Duke offers “a limited number” – appearing to be four named scholarships and one program with an unknown number of scholarships.

    It strikes me no matter which side you fall on with the possibility of moving to Division III, the bigger issue is that athletics is being made the scapegoat for the college’s financial problems. The one article mentioned a campus renovation, and a failed capital campaign for athletics. It sounds to me like their issue isn’t with athletics, but rather someone in the fundraising arm of the college isn’t pulling their weight.

    I don’t find it suprising, though, that the faculty wants to make the move. I’ve yet to come across a faculty at a college that is in support of athletics at any level.

  24. The concluding sentence above is a pretty sweeping generalization. Or, not to be flippant, you don’t get out much. 😉

  25. “I don’t know of many private schools that offer all that many academic merit scholarships. Princeton and Stanford offer none. Duke offers “a limited number” – appearing to be four named scholarships and one program with an unknown number of scholarships.”

    You are a bit under-informed. While it’s true that the Ivies and other big-name outstanding academic schools award little to no merit-based aid, there are many, many of private colleges – especially small liberal arts colleges – that give out numerous academic scholarships. While many of these schools are trending away from full-ride academic scholarships, more and more are giving out a set amount to any NHS/National Merit Scholar/other academic qualifer (depending on the school). This how all but the elite private liberal arts colleges compete with each other.

  26. The article itself stated that the school could not compete with the large public universities that give hundreds of full ride academic scholarships. Freeing up the athletic money, would in fact help them to provide more academic money.

  27. gbp0013, the scholarship dollars for “athletics” may be the factor in BSC’s equation that needs to change. If those strong academic kids are going to Auburn (War Eagle!), or forbid, another D1 school in Tuscaloosa on some type of economic ride, then that is what they see as an erosion of their student base from 375 to 313.

    The operative word in most schools tuition revenue is “discount rate”. And every school needs to figure out their discount rate for tuition, whether it is 10%, 25% or 40-50% in selected cases. I don’t fault the school for this evaluation. HealthSouth made lots of money for many people in the Birmingham area who have philanthropic interests, a particularly American attribute. Having seen “philanthropic” fortunes rise and fall thru Oil, Electronics (EDS–Ross Perot and Texas Instruments–Cecil and Ida Green–UT-Southwestern Medical School), Dell Computer (Dell Childrens’ Hosptial of [Austin] Texas), Hughes Aircraft (UT Southwestern Medical School), etc., it may be that the philantrhopic fortunes of BSC were heavily invested in HealthSouth.:-( I am somewhat forgiving of the fundraiser’s in that market.

    BSC jumped from 4 men’s and 2 women’s sports to 6 men’s and 8 women’s. They may have overstepped themselves, and now is a time for a dignified re-assessment. The BSC Community may actually be happy with the SCAC, especially if they can see their peers as Sewanee, Rhodes and Emory. Likewise, there has to be an old NAIA heritage with Huntingdon and LaGrange, but BSC does not necessarily seem to be a “sports-factory” in its NAIA prior to 1998 and the move to non-football D1. Clearly, most of us on this website perceive D3 to be much stronger than it was in 1996-98 when BSC was evaluating the choice to move out of the NAIA, and HealthSouth was an very powerful company in healthcare. D3 is much, much stonger in the south and southwest!

  28. wacsid,
    I meant full-ride academic merit scholarships. I’m sure a lot of schools do give out some money to students for various high school accomplishments in the classroom and in various extra-curricular activities, there’s not many that give full-rides based on merit.

    wt,
    There’s always a handful of professors who are supportive of athletics. I’m more talking about the combined faculty of an institution. Where I’m currently at, our FAR has provided data that nearly 70 percent of the members of the faculty would rather we not have an athletics department. 70 percent! And this is a school that does well within its conference and has won more than a few conference and regional championships.

    And finally, hoops fan,
    Large public universities can give more full-ride merit scholarships because it doesn’t cost your first-born son to attend school there. The total cost is usually about a third of what it would be at a private school, meaning what grant and aid money they have can go farther.

    My personal opinion is that unless you’re going to one of the top schools in the country (the Stanfords, Princetons, Emorys, Carnegie Mellons of the country), it’s a foolish investment to go nearly $150k in debt for four years (and it’s heading that way). You get out of an education what you put into it, whether you go to Gigantic State U. or Tiny Liberal Arts College. But that’s a discussion for another day….

  29. I’m sorry your situation is so bad in terms of faculty support, but overall faculty are supportive of athletics. However, many times faculty are not supportive of scholarship athletics because it can divide a student’s loyaty (are they there to learn or to play ball, etc). I’m aware of very few d3 schools where the faculty would ever let the athletics department go.

    About scholarships. Sure large public universities can afford more of them, but those same universities are the ones BSC is comepting with. They won’t be able to steal a ton of them away with an extra 3 million, but for a school of 1500 students, they could make a sizable improvement in the amount of aid they give out, including a good number of full scholarships.

  30. gbp0013, thanks for the response.

    My first wisecrack is that the same poll also shows that only 43% of the professors in the College of Arts and Sciences approve of the B-school (School of Business).

    Hoops fan, more later. McMurry will probably appeal after researching some issues.

    The McMurry community would want the university to exhaust all appeals.

  36. Assuming the accuracy of the reports that B-SC is hemorrhaging money and dipping into the endowment and has a “junk-bond” rating, it seems clear that something has to be done. Institutional welfare and health must take precedence over athletics (that’s a truism, but nonetheless true, especially in this instance).

  37. “Some student protesters mockingly lumped BSC’s future reputation with that of Augsburg College and Cayuga County College, schools I’ve never heard of, either.”

    Geez! What did Augsburg ever do to these people?

  38. Another Birmingham News article by Jon Solomon contains some hard numbers about D3 sports, expenses, discount rates, total budget expenses and projections about BSC’s success in the SCAC and D3, a “Top 10” D3 power with respect to facilities.

    BSC’s nearest opponent in the Big South is UNC-Asheville, 370 miles away. Seven of the 11 SCAC schools are 380 miles or more. But, Atlanta is an easy (2-hour) 145 miles. Memphis is 236 miles. Jackson is a straight shot down I-20 at 237 miles, and Sewanee is about 160 miles from Birmingham. For those of us in the South, those distances are not bad. The SCAC’s breaking into Divisions will help that immensely.

    I found this article to contain as many hard cold facts as any I have read in the last 5 years. I commend Mr Solomon on the quality of the journalism. The BSC fans have been well-served by most of the reporting this week.

    http://www.al.com/sports/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/sports/1147857387179060.xml&coll=2&thispage=1

  39. Mike Perrin reports in the Birmingham News that an unidentified D1 school requested an application to D3 but to delay the process until 2007. With the momentum that this story has gained, BSC may just proceed more quickly.

    http://www.al.com/sports/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/sports/114854885596420.xml&coll=2

    BSC will be the “poster child” in the debate about the right place of academics and athletics for the next 2 decades. (Every NCAA Death Penalty story has the obligatory “SMU is the only D-1 school to receive the Death Penalty in 1987-88.)

  41. New D3football.com front page story:

    The Birmingham (Ala.) News is reporting on its Web site that Birmingham-Southern College is leaving Division I to join Division III and will add football. Board of Trustees chair Jim Stephens told the newspaper they will move to Division III and play football in an on-campus stadium. A timeline was not provided.

    Officials at Birmingham-Southern were not immediately available for comment and have not returned phone calls placed to the communications and sports information offices.

    The school was first reported to be considering the move earlier in May. More information and coverage is available on the D3hoops.com Daily Dose, our Division III basketball blog.

  42. Here is the BSC.edu story:

    http://www.bsc.edu/communications/news/active/20060526_ncaa.htm

    Birmingham-Southern College trustees vote to seek reclassification of intercollegiate athletics program from NCAA Division I to Division III

    BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—The Birmingham-Southern College Board of Trustees voted today to seek permission from the NCAA to reclassify its intercollegiate athletics program from Division I to non-scholarship Division III beginning with the 2007-08 academic year.

    The board’s vote comes after the first internal review and assessment of the athletics program since the college applied for membership in NCAA Division I in 1999.

    Chairman of the Board James T. Stephens said that Birmingham-Southern would seek reclassification from the NCAA prior to June 1. The college would continue to compete at the Division I level in the 2006-07 academic year.

    Stephens cited financial and philosophical considerations for the reclassification.

    “The board has a legal responsibility to examine all of the college’s programs to determine mission fit and financial impact on the institution,” said Stephens. “Obviously one of the things you consider in such a study after seven years is if Division I is indeed the right fit for an institution of our size, of our academic mission and quality, and of our financial resources.

    “The financial performance of our intercollegiate athletics program is substantially below the expectations set when the board approved the move to NCAA Division I.”

    Stephens said the board also considered whether Division I participation was compatible with the college’s mission and profile. He said the board looked at institutions within the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference during the review. Ten of the 11 institutions in the SCAC house Phi Beta Kappa chapters, as does BSC, and most are ranked among the top 50 liberal arts institutions in the nation in such rankings as U.S. News & World Report. BSC’s enrollment also is similar to most of the SCAC institutions.

    Stephens said that Birmingham-Southern would seek membership in the SCAC, which includes such schools as Sewanee, Rhodes College, Centre College, DePauw University, Trinity University, and Millsaps College.

    BSC President Dr. David Pollick said that all current Birmingham-Southern student-athletes on athletic scholarship will remain on athletic scholarship until they complete their eligibility and that incoming freshman student-athletes will remain on athletic scholarship through their junior year. In their last year, the college’s Financial Aid Office will work with them to determine their qualifications for need-based and merit financial aid.

    As a member of NCAA Division I, Birmingham-Southern has won seven Big South Conference titles and competed in three NCAA Tournaments.

    Prior to seeking NCAA Division I status in 1999, Birmingham-Southern had spent the previous 46 years as a member of the NAIA, including two national championships in basketball and one in baseball.

    “Our board is committed to achieving the same level of excellence at the national level of Division III,” said Pollick.

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