University of Georgia severs relationship with Foundation
The University System of Georgia's Board of Regents announced on Wednesday that it would cut ties with the University of Georgia Foundation, an organization that controls the University's $450 million endowment and the University's name, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The break-up would be an unprecedented move in American higher education.
Last May, the Board of Regents decided to cut ties with the Foundation but reversed their plan in August. The rift between the two groups began when University of Georgia president Michael F. Adams chose not to extend the contract of popular athletics director and former head football coach Vince Dooley.
According to the Chronicle, a University of Georgia spokesperson said on Thursday that the regents were confident that they would gain control of their endowment and naming rights but that the plans to break off from the Foundation were still unsettled. The regents requested that the University of Georgia create a replacement organization to manage the endowment.
After ties had been restored last year, Board of Regents members said that they expected relations to improve but that no such improvement had been seen over that time period.
SUNY Stony Brook punished by NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) placed the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook on three year's probation and took away 12.5 athletic scholarships from students over the next two years due to multiple violations of eligibility rules for dozens of athletes, according to the Chronicle.
According to the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions, 53 athletes in 14 sports were not eligible to compete during the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 academic years.
Of these athletes, 30 were ineligible because they did not fill out the proper paperwork and the other 23 were not eligible due to a lack of credit hours at the University or at the institutions they attended before going to SUNY.
According to the Chronicle, all of these violations occurred during the first two years after SUNY moved from Division III to Division I athletics. A report issued by the Committee on Infractions noted the lack of institutional control for not having a proper compliance program for movement to Division I.
SUNY hired a new Associate Director of Athletics for Compliance, an Assistant Director of Compliance, and a consultant who recommended ways to restructure the program. Director of Athletics Jim Fiore expressed his relief to get this behind the University and move on, according to the Chronicle.
--Compiled by Brian McPartland from the Chronicle of Higher Education
