Minutes of the April 3 IAAC meeting 1. The meeting began at 10:55 a.m. Members attending were Athletic Director Steve Kirkham; Faculty representatives Travis Peterson, and Charlie Shub; Financial Aid representative Jennifer Fisher; Staff Representative Glenn Steimling; Student Representative Justin Bailey; and UBAC Representative Al Schoffstall. Also in attendance were Coaches Wood and Caton. 2. Coach Wood gave her season wrapup report. She characterized the season as amazing. The team finished second in the RMAC Tournament, Beat the University of Nebraska at Kearney for the first time ever, and qualified for the NCAA tournament for the first time ever. Senior Brooke Akers was named to the all region team. Akers, along with senior Diane Sheldon and Sophomore Heidi Fehringer were named to all RMAC teams. Both Akers and Sheldon will be receiving diplomas at commencement this May. For next season, the team will only miss two Friday class days until the playoffs. Six seniors have completed their eligibility. Wood announced a strong recruiting class including two local students transferring from Division I programs, two who chose our engineering programs over Mines, one in education, one in business, and one in nursing. 3. Coach Caton started his season wrapup report by quipping, "I wish I could match that." He noted that pre-season injuries took a heavy toll and three scholarship athletes did not compete owing to season ending injuries in the pre-season. Despite that, Caton found many positives. The team beat a Division I school on the road. The team beat Colorado Christian University on the road. The team ended the season with a 3-1 record. Towards the end of the season, Caton was starting 3 freshmen, one sophomore, and senior point guard Nic Fuller. The team thrived academically. Fuller will be finishing his degree next year and will be helping with some coaching duties. 4. In follow up to the reports, the committee had a broad discussion vehicles for supporting athletics. With the current facility at capacity even without supporting events, it seems foolish to attract more people when the facility is full anyway. That will change in Fall of 2009 when the new facility is in place. Athletics is already working on a range of fronts to assure that fan support infrastructure. There are a variety of school spirit initiatives in the planning stages including t-shirt giveaways, half time competitions between dormitories, and the like. A pep band is being started and there will be a contest for developing a fight song. TV broadcasting of several games on a pilot basis proved successful and was well received. The campus initiative for a common campus calendar should help minimize conflicting events in the future. There was some discussion of the issue of a "practice window" that would allow teams to practice as a unit without some players having to miss practice to attend a class scheduled at practice time. Given that many classes have only one section, and given that few classes are offered on Friday, practice windows are difficult. 5. A motion by Al Schoffstall seconded by Travis Peterson to approve the minutes of the March meeting passed without dissent. 6. Director Kirkham gave his report. He reported that the refurbishing of the old weight room into offices is progressing nicely. The space has been painted and carpeted and dividers will arrive next week. It will be nice to have all offices in the same place. The old aerobics room has been converted into a weight room. Kirkham brought plans for the 7.1M event center. Construction on the 1350 seat facility will begin in May or June with completion targeted to September, 2009. Student seating will be on the west side. East side seating will be accessible from both above and below, and the Dwire Hall atrium area can be used for pre game receptions. The center will include a new training room, visitor locker rooms, and officials locker rooms. The current training room and locker rooms will be converted into varsity locker rooms. Kirkham announced that the RMAC, the oldest athletics conference in the country will be celebrating its 100th anniversary next year. 7. Shub gave the FAR report. Upcoming events include: a. Chancellor's faculty/staff appreciation barbecue in conjunction with softball on Wednesday, April 16. b. The SAAC Picnic and awards presentation after softball on Sunday, April 20. c. The SAAC CUSPYs on Tuesday, April 29 Shub will be attending the RMAC FAR meeting later this month. The conversion of IAAC practices to Administrative Policy Statements is progressing. The documents have been reformatted and have gone to the executive. There was some question about whether the class attendance guidelines should properly be in the academic policies section since it was developed by EPUS and approved by the faculty representative assembly, or if it should be restricted to apply to student athletes only and made an athletics policy. Shub said that he believed that it would be an academic policy. 8. Justin Bailey gave the SAAC report. They are busy planning for the picnic and the CUSPYs. 9. Glenn Steimling reported on the Sport Management Program. That the USOC agreeing to stay in the Springs for the next 25 years is a huge positive program. He and Professor Olson have been busy making connections and establishing opportunities for the Sport Management program with the Olympic group and others sport entities in the state. It seems like every day another great new opportunity arrives. He described those experiences as being humbling and incredibly exciting at the same time. The program has nearly 50 commitments for the incoming class in the fall. That leaves only 10 spots available for the program to be fully subscribed with 60 students in the inaugural class. These spots would, of course, be available for student athletes. The program can be an asset for coaches as they are recruiting. Student-athletes entering the program would major in the College of Business and be pursuing an athletics related career. Students in the sport management program will enjoy 'extra attention' because there will be about 40 students in each class (for a program total of about 160) but the program plans to have a student to advisor ratio of 80-1. The internship and field experiences will help keep them on task academically with great support within the program. Staff is hoping to build and operate the program with a 'team' concept with the eventual success depending on the achievement of ALL students. 10. At 11:45, the meeting was adjourned.