Report: PCA, UI athletics need better communication

IOWA CITY - A lack of collaboration and communication between the University of Iowa Athletics Department and the UI's Presidential Committee on Athletics has in the past led to confusion and frustration regarding the role of the PCA, a UI report says.

The reporting mechanisms for the PCA are not clearly defined, and it has been unclear when communication between the athletics department and the PCA is expected, a campus committee said in the report to UI President Sally Mason.

“As a consequence, members of the PCA often have the impression that they have no sense of purpose and that they are irrelevant,” the report says. “There is a need to clearly formalize the expectations and roles of the PCA.”

The four-member review committee recommends Mason sponsor a meeting each fall semester with PCA members and athletics officials; that Mason meet formally at least once each semester with the PCA; and that numerous structure and oversight changes be made to PCA subcommittees.

The changes are needed to improve the effectiveness of the committee, the review states, but improving the PCA's role in providing meaningful advice to Mason and Athletics Director Gary Barta hinges on improved communication, the report says.

Mason is reviewing the report and discussing the recommendations with her leadership team, university spokesman Tom Moore said. There is no timeline yet for when decisions might be made about the recommendations, Moore said.

Bill Hines, a UI law professor and incoming PCA president, said he's already working on better communication and plans to meet with Barta and Mason to talk about the group's role. Hines said the review committee may have overstated the communication problem in its report, and he said he sees the more major obstacle as “trying to retrofit the current role of the PCA with the history of the more active involvement in the monitoring and management” of athletics the group used to have in its previous incarnation.

“There was this sea change six years ago, and we're still feeling our way, somewhat,” Hines said. “I don't think it's communication as the problem so much as it is a consensus on exactly what the role of this group is.”

Mason asked for the review in February, and the study committee, made up of one faculty member, one staff member and two students, delivered its 26-page report this month. The PCA is an advisory committee for athletics and reports to Mason.

The ongoing disconnect between the athletics department and the PCA boiled over at the May meeting, when some committee members bemoaned the lack of input and advanced dialogue about athletics facilities. Some members also expressed disappointment that they weren't better updated after 13 UI football players were hospitalized in January.

Other recommendations in the report are: the group should perhaps meet quarterly rather than monthly, and meeting agendas should be set by work items from the group's subcommittees, rather than being only topical agendas set by the athletic department.

The report also states that since the PCA is a purely advisory committee with no responsibility for management and control of the athletic program, the group could consider not having the meetings open to the public, though the review notes this would be a controversial change in tradition.

Hines said that would not be possible, as state code specifically requires open meetings for faculty-dominated advisory bodies of intercollegiate athletics.