They are definitely committed to NCAA D3 athletics and are doing it right.

Usually with campaigns, you don't enter the public phase until you have at least 60% 9usually more).

So that would mean they already raised over $30 million.

And they landed a shoe contract with an NBA player!

And Regent's basketball schedule is impressive as well. A few D1 teams.


Regent Hoops Schedule

Elizabethtown College announced (undefined) faculty cuts and gave themselves five years to address financial challenges that will otherwise result in a budget deficit of "millons":  https://etownian.com/main/news/elizabethtown-college-announces-faculty-cuts-in-lieu-of-projected-deficits/

Miles College has signed an agreement for the purchase of Birmingham Southern's campus

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2024/09/27/miles-college-buy-birmingham-southern-campus

QuoteMiles College has signed an agreement to buy the 192-acre campus of Birmingham-Southern College—which closed abruptly earlier this year due to financial issues—Al.com reported.

Though the purchase price was not disclosed, the campus was recently valued at $65 million. Alabama A&M University had also expressed interest in buying it, reportedly offering $52 million for the site in May and then $65.5 million in June, local media reported.

Miles, a historically Black college, is located less than 10 miles from Birmingham-Southern.

Miles is now D2, but it was D3 at the inception of the new division back in the early '70s.

Really interesting podcast from Malcolm Gladwell about how one guy used fundraising practices in college athletics to get him out of a bribery charge in that whole pay for admission fraud thing.

https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/the-tipping-point-revisited-georgetown-massacre-part-1

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on October 03, 2024, 11:17:07 AMReally interesting podcast from Malcolm Gladwell about how one guy used fundraising practices in college athletics to get him out of a bribery charge in that whole pay for admission fraud thing.

https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/the-tipping-point-revisited-georgetown-massacre-part-1

I haven't listened to Malcolm Gladwell since he trashed Division III basketball a few years ago. Unliked and unsubscribed.

Baldwin Wallace cutting 10 programs and laying off 28 employees

QuoteThe latest restructuring plan calls for laying off two executive-level staff, eight nonexecutive staff and 18 faculty members. Those are in addition to 17 staffers and 19 faculty members who accepted buyouts last month.

Including past buyouts and eliminations, the university expects total faculty to decrease 23%, from 213 at the start of the current semester to 164 when the restructuring is complete.

Additionally, Baldwin Wallace said it will consolidate academic administration by eliminating all but one of the deans overseeing its five academic units, as well as nine associate deans. Now, the units will report directly to the provost's office.

QuoteOn the program chopping block are:

    Music history.
    Jazz.
    Visual/studio art.
    Communication studies.
    Film studies.
    Public relations.
    Public health.
    Master's in public health.
    Digital marketing-to-MBA graduate program.
    Master's in higher education leadership.

QuoteThis is the second round of cuts that Baldwin Wallace has announced this year. In February, the university announced it would nix or consolidate 13 majors and eliminate 23 jobs, many of which were already vacant.

Elizabethtown cuts three majors, 13 faculty members

QuoteIn an email sent to all students and faculty, Elizabethtown College announced that it will cut 13 full-time faculty positions and three majors. Faculty will finish out the academic year before leaving their positions. The email was sent around 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 4.

Fine Arts, Sociology and Spanish/Spanish Education majors will no longer be offered at Etown. The Sociology minor was also cut.

Mount Mary (WI) leaving DIII for NAIA

Perhaps they think athletic scholarships will help drive some enrollment

Quote"The NAIA serves the interests of small institutions like ours and is a perfect fit for us," said Mount Mary University President Isabelle Cherney. "We will now be able to recruit student-athletes with scholarships, attracting new talent and improving the student-athlete and visitor experience. I anticipate an exciting new season with a fresh group of competitors, and above all, I am thrilled about the NAIA's shared values of character-driven athletics."

USDoE Scorecard for Mount Mary:
8-year graduation rate:  59%
1st year retention rate:  66%
Median earnings after graduation:  $49K
Average net annual cost: $22.3K
640 undergraduates
Rosters (all-women's college):
BB: 14
XC: 6
Golf: 6
Soccer: 18
Softball: 12
VB: 12
Total (after eliminating multi-sport athletes):  65, ~10% of population

They will probably be NAIA D2, which allows 10 SB, 6 BB, 5 golf, 8 VB, 12 soccer, 12 T&F scholarships which can be full or divided up.  But if you end up spending more money on scholarships than you recoup in tuition, what is this going to buy them?  And you know the current student athletes are probably getting at least 50% in some kind of "aid" (aka tuition discounts) so this seems like a long putt to make a substantial difference.  Oh, they can admit students that don't meet their normal criteria, but in Fall '22, 1339 women applied, 930 were accepted, but only 155 enrolled, so it's not like they're rejecting a lot of people to begin with.

Quote from: Kuiper on October 07, 2024, 06:03:54 PMMount Mary (WI) leaving DIII for NAIA

Perhaps they think athletic scholarships will help drive some enrollment

It's more likely that joining the NAIA is a maneuver to cut one or more sports, since they're at the six-sport minimum required to maintain D3 membership and, as Ron's post showed, they're basically understrength in all six of them as far as roster size is concerned. (This has been an ongoing problem for MMU; in 2012-13 the school had to cancel its WBB season due to an insufficient number of players.) President Cherney's remarks strike me as boilerplate, unless she truly believes that the promise of a partial scholie is going to cause prospects to flock to a school that has been perennially uncompetitive in athletics, even by the low standards of women's colleges.

If so, it might be a vain hope, because it doesn't appear that anybody's getting the word out that Mount Mary offers intercollegiate sports. I've seen the Blue Angels play numerous times over the years in WSOC, WVB, WBB, and softball, and I've frequently been convinced that all of their players are walk-ons. I suspect that some of the coaches over the years in the MMU athletic department haven't done any recruiting at all, because so often the Blue Angels are basically intramural level in terms of talent from one sport to the next. (The current regime in WBB seems to be the exception, since MMU actually beat some NACC teams last season.) They're usually so dreadful that I can't imagine why any coach would schedule the Blue Angels unless he or she was worried about job security and needed the easy win.

Quote from: Gregory Sager on October 07, 2024, 09:56:53 PM

Quote from: Kuiper on October 07, 2024, 06:03:54 PMMount Mary (WI) leaving DIII for NAIA

Perhaps they think athletic scholarships will help drive some enrollment

It's more likely that joining the NAIA is a maneuver to cut one or more sports, since they're at the six-sport minimum required to maintain D3 membership ...

Ding ding ding. That was my take as well.

Very possible they could already be on probation and their NCAA membership on the verge of being canceled due to sport sponsorship issues. They canceled their entire 2023 golf schedule (they only play in the fall) and don't have a team this year, so that's two years where they're sponsoring a maximum of five sports.

Today's release (https://mtmaryathletics.com/general/2024-25/releases/20241008g7tlho) also only references five sports (XC, SOC, VB, BKB, SB)

Quote from: Pat Coleman on October 08, 2024, 11:02:55 AM

Quote from: Gregory Sager on October 07, 2024, 09:56:53 PM

Quote from: Kuiper on October 07, 2024, 06:03:54 PMMount Mary (WI) leaving DIII for NAIA

Perhaps they think athletic scholarships will help drive some enrollment

It's more likely that joining the NAIA is a maneuver to cut one or more sports, since they're at the six-sport minimum required to maintain D3 membership ...

Ding ding ding. That was my take as well.

At what point does an institution simply drop athletics? I'm not seeing where this change is a benefit on any level.