ECC FACULTY ATHLETIC REPRESENTATIVES COUNCIL

NCAA Bylaw 4.02.2 states "a faculty athletics representative is a member of an institution's faculty or administrative staff holding faculty rank, who is designated by the institution's chief executive officer or other appropriate entity to represent the institution and its faculty in the institution's relationships with the NCAA and conference".

The role of the faculty athletics representative is both important and multifaceted at each of our conference member institutions. While the chief executive officer must be the central figure in ensuring institutional control of the intercollegiate athletics program, the faculty athletics representative is an essential partner of the chief executive officer in protecting the centrality of the academic enterprise at the institution. The working relationship between the chief executive officer and the faculty athletics representative is a critically important determinant of the effectiveness of the faculty athletics representative in contributing to the oversight of the athletics program. The basis of this relationship should be a model of institutional control in which significant responsibilities for administration and oversight are assigned to the faculty athletics representative, as well as to the athletics director.

In this day and age it is important for each institution to recognize that the FAR position has become a fundamental administrative assignment that is a departure from the traditional committee assignments assumed by faculty members. Additionally, as each institution struggles to define the role as it pertains to their own specific situation, it is important to communicate throughout campus what those duties entail.