Committee may review applicants
Advertiser Staff
Prospective athletes who may not meet all the normal admission criteria for the University of Hawai'i would have their applications reviewed to ensure they are capable of surviving academically.
The establishment of a five-member review committee — empowered to make recommendations to the admissions office — is the most prominent and potentially far-reaching of five measures the school said it is adopting to raise its NCAA Academic Progress Rate.
While 16 UH teams either met NCAA benchmarks or were not penalized, two of UH's most visible sports, football and men's baseball, were notified of sanctions for substandard APRs earlier this year.
The football team was to face the loss of five scholarships and the baseball team 1.7 after having APRs below the minimum benchmark of 925. Football's was 898 and baseball's 890.
"Our goal is to raise the NCAA Graduation Success Rate and team Academic Progress Rate to above the 50th percentile among Division I institutions nationwide," Manoa Chancellor Denise Konan said in a release yesterday.
Elements of the plan include:
A UH official said most of the elements to the school's plan have been utilized or were being put in place in some fashion prior to the APRs except for the application review.
"It (application review) should have a big impact because we will have scrutiny from all the different areas, with the committee established to look at the applications," said Marilyn Moniz-Kaho'ohanohano, UH associate athletic director and senior women's administrator.
UH said the committee will be composed of the admissions director, the assistant vice chancellor for undergraduate education, the learning specialist academic advisor and two faculty members.
While the committee can make recommendations, UH said its admissions office will have the "final decision."
"We think we have a workable plan to help our student-athletes, and our academic support staff will be monitoring the impact of these new procedures through the coming school year to make adjustments if necessary," Konan said.
