Best Practices for Campus and Conference SAACs

In conjunction with the release of two videos, Division I SAAC has also released a series of best practices for Campus and Conference SAACs.  These best practices are aimed at keeping communication flowing between all levels of SAAC (campus, conference and national).  Please leave a comment if you have further suggestions.


Conference SAAC Best Practices 

• Relationship with DI SAAC representative
• Assure that good communication exists between DI rep and Conference SAAC liaison prior to and following your meeting
• Allow for the DI rep to attend in-person meetings to best collect feedback on legislative proposals
• Conference SAAC meeting and legislative proposals
• DI SAAC has found that conferences that have an in-person meeting during the months of Sept/Oct have the best success of receiving detailed student-athlete feedback on legislative proposals
• At the meeting, utilize materials provided from NCAA to best educate conference SAAC on proposals affecting student- athlete well-being
• If possible, allow for a compliance officer to attend meetings in order to better explain and provide examples of how proposed legislation would affect the student-athlete experience
• When filling out your conference’s position grid, make sure to add as many notes as to why the conference felt a certain way on each proposal

Campus SAAC Legislative Best Practices

• Relationship with DI SAAC conference representative
• Make sure that your campus SAAC knows what the DI SAAC is and who your conferences representative is – they can prove to be incredibly helpful when it comes to education on legislation as well as other hot topics from a national perspective
• Utilize your campus’ conference SAAC representative as they will have knowledge of the proposals either from their interaction at an in-person conference SAAC meeting, or at the very least from email communication between DI SAAC and each campus representative
• Presenting Legislation
• Designate a certain campus SAAC meeting each fall to devote time to discussing legislative proposals.
• Attempt to get as much diversity as possible at that meeting (sport/ethnicity/gender)
• Utilize a compliance officer to come and present in order to provide clarification and examples for certain proposals that may prove to be confusing
• When providing feedback to your conference SAAC representative, please provide as much detailed feedback about why your institution felt strongly one way or the other.