CACC Office: Dan Mara, Jonathan Harper, and Ellen O’Brien
Review of minutes from April 12, 2013 meeting – Libby Nichols (Attachment #1)
Libby Nichols (Vice Chair) gave a brief report of the minutes from the April SAAC meeting that was held at Georgian Court. Important items included the presentation by Eileen Segura (NCAA), officer elections, and review of legislation.
Campus Updates
Chestnut Hill:
Planned fundraisers include a raffle/pizza party in board room above the basketball gym; CACC socks: Team IMPACT.
Philadelphia:
Wounded Warrior Project Obstacle Relay Race in collaboration with the Veterans Student Organization (October 27, 2013); Pink Games for breast cancer awareness; Support Our Troops theme for community service this year: Each team must come up with their own service project to benefit the military (ie. Toys for Tots, letters, Philadelphia VA Medical Center volunteering); Athletic Social - Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 to celebrate fall, winter, and spring athletes; Ram Madness annual raffle for Make-A-Wish; Friends of Jacqueline Foundation.
Georgian Court:
Annual Gatorade pong for alcohol awareness and Make-A-Wish; Crop walk to donate food for those in need; Each team has a Pink game for breast cancer awareness; Social SAAC meeting every month.
Concordia:
Pink events throughout the year; Men’s basketball fourth annual Jimmy Sayeth game; Baseball team drafted a Team IMPACT kid –Created a mock NLI for him to sign at Homecoming; Pitch for a cure; Men’s golf Clipper’s Against Cancer.
HFU:
Eighth year of Build a Library – Donate books; Oktoberfest at home soccer game with proceeds to MAW; Visited children’s hospital and nursing home in Philadelphia; Many efforts are going towards Baby Bennett, the son of SID at HFU (Bowling for Bennett); 5k in the spring; Gym class with the local day care.
Post:
5k in October; Memorial for Rob Roman; Make-A-Wish basketball game.
Felician:
North New Jersey Walk for Wishes; Midnight Madness Raffle;50/50 raffle at home games; Spare change nights; Tomorrow’s Children Toy Auction; Make-A-Wish night; Play for Kay (Basketball); Dig Pink Night (Volleyball); Breakfast for Dinner Night; Midnight madness raffle.
Bloomfield:
Garage sale – all proceeds to Make-A-Wish; Bake sales and raffles at home games and selling stars; May host a run at local park; Team IMPACT.
Dominican:
Casino night; BBQ in between men’s and women’s soccer games; Midnight madness; Two teams have initiated relationships with Team IMPACT.
Caldwell:
SAAC field day and Caldwell town street fair; Basketball basket raffle for MAW; Volleyball Pink out game for breast cancer awareness; Baseball clinics for kids in town.
Nyack:
Baseball team drafted a Team IMPACT kid; Volunteer for YMCA; Elementary school reading; Pink games; Money kits for MAW.
Wilmington:
Team IMPACT; Breast cancer awareness games; Silent auction from donated items; Adopt a highway; Christmas toy drive; Dodgeball; 3-on-3 basketball; DFRC reach out night; Fall and Spring sport send off.
USciences:
Alumni golf tournament; Midnight madness; Raffles for MAW; Sell “flames” for MAW; Pink-a-thon to support breast cancer awareness.
Goldey-Beacom:
Midnight Madness; student-athlete volleyball tournament; Make-A-Wish ping pong tournament; Restaurant night/bag groceries for Make-A-Wish; Field day in the spring; Haunted house to get locals, students, and families involved (staffed by student-athletes); Midnight Madness preceded by volleyball game.
Online SAAC forum
Ellen O’Brien suggested the development of an online SAAC forum where discussions can take place and documents can be posted for all members to review. Items to post can include project ideas, reports from campus SAAC meetings, questions about legislation, etc. Either Facebook or Google will be used as the online forum.
National SAAC Update – Amy Berry (Attachment #2)
CACC National SAAC representative, Amy Berry (GCU) presented a summary to the group regarding her experience at the Summit in July 2013.
There is a push for additional drug testing, hoping to increase education and reduce drug use.
Division II is considering teaming up with military bases to hold events/games.
Division II is reconsidering the slogan, “I Chose Division II.”
Legislation – Ellen O’Brien
Ellen O’Brien reviewed the Path to Graduation initiatives, including the initial eligibility, two-year transfer, and progress towards degree proposals. (Attachment #3a)
Initial Eligibility:
Proposed a sliding scale to compare GPA and test scores. Increases the minimum GPA required to be considered a qualifier, but reduces the test score. Since a good number of partial qualifiers are missing out on the opportunity to compete solely because of a low test score, the hope is the sliding scale would bump those individuals up to qualifiers. If the sliding scale is adopted, a PSA could have as low as a 2.2GPA with an 840 SAT, or a 3.3GPA with a 400 SAT and still be considered a qualifier.
Two-year transfer requirements:
Requires a 2.2GPA and 12 credit hours per term to align with the proposed initial eligibility requirements. The number of physical education credits accepted would be limited to two unless required for a PE or education degree at the certifying institution. Any two year college transfer who graduates from the two year school is eligible to compete and receive aid upon transferring. A two year transfer who meets the requirements except for the 2.2 GPA, may receive aid and practice as long as they have at least a 2.0 GPA.
Progress Towards degree:
Option 1: Requires 18 semester hours per academic year (excluding summer school credits); maintain 2.0 GPA and declare degree after year two.
Option 2: Require 27 semester hours per academic year (including summer credits); maintain a 2.0GPA and declare a degree after year two. Once the degree is declared, only 24 hours per year are required, but the averaging method may not be used.
Option 3: Require 24 semester hours per academic year (including summer credits); maintain a 2.0GPA and declare a degree after year two. Once the degree is declared the averaging method may not be used.
Following the review of the PTG initiatives, Ellen O’Brien asked for feedback from the group. Two or three advisors were in favor of the altering of initial eligibility requirements, but no one was in favor of the entire package of proposals. The group agreed that the current legislation seems to be appropriate and change is not necessary.
SAAC Legislative Grids
The SPOPL should be distributed on Monday, September 23rd. A conference call will be held on a Sunday evening in early October to review each proposal. Following the initial call, each campus SAAC group should meet to vote on the proposals and complete the grids. A final conference call will be held on a Sunday in mid-October to report the vote outcomes to Amy Berry and Ellen O’Brien.
Conference Project
Libby Nichols explained to the group some of the proposed ideas for a SAAC conference project. Ideas included:
5k/3k, Silly Olympics, Decathlon, Change War during Week of Wishes.
The group does want some sort of conference project, but understands that travel distances could pose problems. Many SAAC reps were interested in having a SAAC leadership conference in conjunction with one of the two CACC SAAC meetings. The ECC has traditionally had an overnight conference for SAAC reps to participate in leadership training and to build relationships with those from other institutions. The majority of the group was interested in pairing up with the ECC to put on a similar event.
Team IMPACT
The group watched a five minute video that highlighted the Team IMPACT program.
A number of CACC teams have been paired up with kids through Team IMPACT and the conference hopes to form a partnership with the program (similar to ECC and NE-10). The SAAC group agreed that although the importance of Make-A-Wish is understood, being able to work with a kid face to face makes the fundraising much more rewarding. Since Make-A-Wish involves fundraising, and Team IMPACT involves the donation of time, the two programs could complement one another.
Spring Programming
The most requested topic for spring programming was leadership. Those who were present for the spring SAAC meeting in 2012, would be interested in bringing the same speaker back for our 2014 spring meeting.
Commissioner Mara thanked the group for attending the meeting and stressed the importance of the opinions and feedback provided by the SAAC reps. A key example of this has to do with a volleyball student-athlete from Bentley (NE-10). She shared her interest in the Make-A-Wish program at a National SAAC meeting, which stimulated the ongoing partnership DII has with MAW. This is a great example of how one idea or suggestion from a student-athlete can truly go a long way and make a difference.
Commissioner Mara informed the group about the CACC sponsored proposal. The proposal allows two basketball contests to be exempted annually as part of a conference challenge event, instead of once every three years. The proposal would allow more exempted regional play for basketball teams each year. This would also assist the basketball Regional Advisory Committees who make post season selections, as they would have more games to base their decisions off of. In order for legislation to be voted on at the convention, either 15 schools or two conferences need to support/sponsor the proposal. Obviously, the CACC only has 14 institutions, therefore, two conferences would need to serve as co-sponsors. The proposal has been sponsored by two other conferences (Sunshine State and South Atlantic) and therefore will be on the floor in January 2014.
Women’s track and field will be our 13th championship this academic year. Men’s track and field will likely be added within the next few years. This year’s T&F championship will be held at Georgian Court University.
Nikki Lockhart asked if there was any follow up regarding the discussion of the awarding of the sportsmanship award. Assistant Commissioner Harper explained that the ADs agreed that the student-athletes should have a voice in the selection of the sportsmanship award winners. The process for the selection is still being finalized. This year, the SIDs will be voting for Coach of the Year.
Jonathan shared how much the traffic on the website has increased over the course of the past year. This has to do with the success of CACC teams, expansion of sponsored sports, as well as redesign of the website. There were a particularly high number of hits during the web-streamed championships. Aside from highlights of athletic dominance, Jonathan would like to focus on community service, personal stories, and anything else that would help portray the well-rounded nature of CACC student-athletes.
The Presidents are interested in the importance of web-streaming on all campuses. Jonathan has been working with several institutions who are trying to implement web-streaming as well as those who are already utilizing webcasting programs.
A defensive player of the week (excluding baseball and softball) will be chosen for all team sports this year.
Coaches will be meeting two weeks after conference championships to review the season. Jonathan requested that the student-athletes share their concerns or suggestions with coaches prior to the meeting.
Jonathan explained that SIDs use live stats and send XML files to the NCAA servers. This information drives everything from statistics to post season selections, as well as all of the information on the CACC website. If a statistical change needs to be made, the host institutions’ SID needs to go in and make the appropriate change.
Commissioner Mara stressed the positives of the Team IMPACT program. Both the kids and the student-athletes truly benefit from the relationships formed.
Jonathan explained that the conference would like to film a few new commercials. He requested that each SAAC rep bring his/her uniform to the Spring SAAC meeting so a new commercial can be filmed.
