The Associated Students of Madison Shared Governance Committee learned about strategies to fairly divide profits and attention throughout different sports on campus during a presentation from the UW Athletic Board Chair Thursday.
As part of ASM, the Shared Governance Committee is responsible for appointing students to various committees across UW-Madison and the UW System.
Committee Chair Morgan Rae said various board members from different Shared Governance groups occasionally come in to inform committee members on topics they may not otherwise know about.
Athletic Board Chair Mark Covaleski said that by forming the Power Five, a five-conference alliance within the NCAA, large conferences such as the Big 10 and SEC now have the ability to make their own rules over certain topics, particularly those which benefit college athletes.
Covaleski said after gaining responsibility through the Power Five, the next step is to establish an independent governance among the conferences.
“My goodness, be careful what you wish for,” Covaleski said. “Because now we have the issue of: How are we going to legislate ourselves?”
With the policy-making power now in the hands of individual conferences, Covaleski said he does not want teams at UW-Madison to fall into the stigma of only focusing on athletics. Instead he said it is important to “spread the wealth” not only to other sports, but the university’s academics as well.
Rae said if given positive feedback from other committee members, she would be happy to have Covaleski return in the future for further updates from the Athletic Board.
