The arms race, the definition of amateurism, Title IX, commercialism and academic integrity are regularly titles of chapters or catch phrases of texts written about intercollegiate athletics. Community college research focuses on the student population, transfer issues and the role of 2-year colleges within higher education. This study focuses on the intersection. Junior college athletic programs have been operating for nearly a century and currently serve more than 70,000 college students throughout the country without the guidance of appropriate research.Five research questions are divided into two subgroups; the first focusing on the history of participation through affiliation with the NJCAA and the next four on current trends in the presence, size and specific sport opportunities in community colleges. Data on the history of participation was collected directly from NJCAA national offices and imported into spreadsheets, providing a substantial amount of raw data previously unavailable. The second subset of questions utilized merged data sets from IPEDS and EADA. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the historic data. Logisitic and OLS regression techniques provided results for the presence, size and specific sport analyses.The decline of men's opportunities in NJCAA institutions provides evidence that women's growth made possible through Title IX, occurred at the expense of men. The economic status of colleges provided a better indicator of growth or decline for either gender in junior college athletic programs after the initial thrust of women's teams ended. Enrollment, the percentage of full time students and the rural variable all proved to be positively associated with the presence of and size of athletic programs, while the female share of the student population was negatively associated with presence and size.The results provide information for local administrators of athletic departments, college administration, state governance groups and national associations. Financial constraints and concerns of supporting athletics at the community college level can be expanded. Gender equity issues should be explored in more detail. A foundation has been established, needs to be reinforced and should provide a launching point for future research in junior college athletics.

In this thesis, I examine the suggested role of intercollegiate athletics by Myles Brand (2006). His two viewpoints, the Standard View and the Integrated View, raise practical areas for reform in the relationship of athletics and academics. The Standard View “conceives of intercollegiate athletics as an extracurricular activity. In that respect, it resembles participation in student government or protests against the university administration. It has more educational value than fraternity parties but less than the chess club” (p.10). The Integrated View’s defining feature “is that athletic programs are made part of the educational mission of the university. Another feature of the Integrated view is its attempt to dispose of the common academic bias against physical ability” (p.17). Although Randolph Feezell (2015) criticizes Brand’s article and finds his arguments unpersuasive, I argue that Brand is more right than he knew and that the Integrated View, while helping to justify intercollegiate athletics as currently designed, also impacts other departments on campus as well. With this in mind, I believe three important reforms should be enacted in a university based on the implications of Brand’s ideas. First and foremost, “athletics” should be understood broadly as an overarching term that encompasses intercollegiate athletics, recreational sports, games and physical activity. With that in mind, I suggest that universities provide more funding to intramurals and club sports. This money, now provided to the general student population, will be used to eliminate participation fees and improve facilities and equipment. Second, physical activity classes should be a part of the core curriculum for all students. Finally, the organizational structure of intercollegiate athletics must change. If education is key and if the Integrated View should be accepted, then intercollegiate athletics should be scaled back, adopting something similar to the current a Division III model.

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Master of Science / Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology / Brandonn S. Harris / Academic clustering is the occurrence of twenty-five percent or more of a single athletic team enrolled into a major (Fountain & Finley, 2009). Although clustering appears to have the possibility to occur among all college students, it seems to be more prevalent within intercollegiate athletics. There are several different factors that influence the prevalence of this experience. For the collegiate student-athlete, these factors include the National Collegiate Athletic Association, university athletic departments, individual differences among student-athletes, and characteristics associated with the university. While these are likely not the only contributors of academic clustering, they seem to be very prominent. Further, given that attention has been given to identifying the negative consequences of academic clustering in intercollegiate athletics, clustering also may result in positive implications. The purpose of this report is to provide information and increase the awareness towards academic clustering. Additionally, this report provides information as to the causes, but also offers recommendations that have the potential to lessen academic clustering within intercollegiate athletics.

The magnitude and allocation of institutional athletic expenditures varies widely across NCAA divisions at the intercollegiate level. I illustrate the relationship between expenditures and institutional characteristics on overall athletic department success (i.e., Directors’ Cup scores) for NCAA Division I and Division III institutions. Specifically, using a fixed effects panel regression model I find that there is a small, positive relationship between total athletic expenditures and Directors’ Cup scores. I also show that time-varying institutional characteristics do not have a significant relationship with athletic performance. Further, my study supports the existence of a positive relationship between female athletic expenditures and Directors’ Cup scores, particularly for Division III institutions. These results provide valuable insights on the scale and distribution of resources associated with institutional achievement across genders and levels of competition in intercollegiate athletics.

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While we know much about the psychology of sport, little gets translated onto the playing field. Typically, there is only consultation when a problem arises or when performance falls short. The purpose of this study was mainly exploratory in order to gather data on three factors of mental health, find any associations between those factors, and to predict any risk factors using demographic variables. Three validated measurement tools were used to measure burnout (Athlete Burnout Questionnaire; Raedeke & Smith, 2004), depression (Beck Depression Inventory-II; Beck et al., 1996), and transition readiness (British Athletes Lifestyle Assessment Needs in Career and Education; Lavallee & Wylleman, 1999). The three measures (ABQ, BDI, and BALANCE) were found to be positively associated based on non-parametric correlation analyses. Medium to large effect sizes were found between each pair, indicating that there are possibly shared factors between depression, burnout, and transition risk. Multiple regression analyses indicated no significant demographic predictors of burnout, depression, or transition readiness. The results of this study show that most student-athletes in this sample are at mild risk for burnout, depression, and transition issues. Mental health screenings, like this one, can provide valuable information to athletic administrations and help avoid larger issues in the future.

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The purpose of the study was to provide an assessment of the involvement of Mississippi's community and junior colleges in intercollegiate athletics during the academic year 2007–2008. These data could assist community and junior college presidents, vice presidents residing over athletics, athletic directors, and other policy makers in their decision-making processes concerning intercollegiate athletics. They could compare their institution with other institutions in the state. This study included the entire population of Mississippi's public community and junior colleges that offered intercollegiate athletics. Frequencies and percentages were utilized by the researcher to report the information. Data were collected to provide an overview of intercollegiate athletics at Mississippi's public community and junior colleges. Information included location, student participation, amount of athletically related student aid, teams sponsored, athletic revenues and expenses, and staffing requirements including salaries.

Intercollegiate athletics are a prominent feature of American higher education. They have been characterized as the “front door” to the university due to their unique ability to draw alumni and other supporters to campus. It is often supposed that the exposure from high-profile athletics produces a number of indirect benefits including greater institutional prestige. Such exposure comes at a cost, however, as most Division I athletics programs are not financially self-sufficient and receive institutional subsidies to balance their budgets. At present, it is unclear how institutions budget for athletics subsidies or whether the recent increases in subsidies have impacted the overall financial picture of colleges and universities. Prior research has shown that athletics subsidies and student tuition and fees are not significantly correlated for public Division I institutions, which suggests the possibility that institutions have reallocated funds from other core areas to athletics. In this dissertation, the relationship between athletics subsidies and one of the most important core areas of the university – education and related activities – was examined. This relationship was investigated using fixed-effects structural equation models to analyze a panel dataset of public Division I institutions. It was found that total athletics subsidies (school funds and student fees) per student and education and related spending per student were positively correlated. This suggests that rather than decrease educational spending, institutions that increase total athletics subsidies have simultaneously increased their educational expenditures. However, in the analyses involving the more restrictive definition of athletics subsidies, it was shown that athletics subsidies from school funds was not correlated with educational spending. The results also provided some evidence that differences in the relationship between athletics subsidies and educational spending exist according to Carnegie classification and level of athletics competition. The findings from this study have a number of implications for higher education policy and future research. The absence of a negative relationship between athletics subsidies and educational spending suggests that athletics subsidies are not associated with decreases in educational spending that could ultimately harm the quality of education provided by colleges and universities. Furthermore, the existence of a positive correlation between athletics subsidies and educational spending and the fact that core revenues were controlled for in the models suggest the possibility that institutions have redirected funds from other areas to support education and athletics.