DALLAS---The Division III Management Council endorsed a comprehensive drug testing pilot program, including drug and alcohol education, during its July 17-18 meeting in Dallas.

The Division III Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, which also met in Dallas, also supports the pilot program, which would involve nearly one-quarter of the division’s schools.

The program, which must be approved in August by the Division III Presidents Council before it can be implemented during the 2007-08 academic year, would devote about $400,000 annually, allocated during 2007-2009, to an education and testing program involving up to 100 institutions.

Management Council members supported an approach in which voluntarily participating institutions would implement a model educational program for their student-athletes. Student-athletes at those schools would then be randomly tested for performance-enhancing substances and, potentially, street drugs. There would not be any penalties associated with a positive test during the pilot phase of the program.

Survey data would be collected in an effort that would broadly seek to measure the impact of both education and testing on substance and alcohol abuse. The NCAA national office would step up efforts to make all Division III institutions and student-athletes more aware of existing educational programs and resources as part of the initiative, and would allocate additional funds to those programs, beginning in 2006-07.

The Presidents Council will consider the proposal during its August 3 meeting in Indianapolis.

In other action, the Management Council endorsed proposals by the Division III Membership Committee to manage the division’s growth by ensuring that new members are fully prepared to join the division and to hold current members accountable for demonstrating their commitment. Council members said they believe the proposals, along with a plan to extend a current moratorium on accepting new members through summer 2007, provide a preferable alternative to a cap on the size of Division III that is being sought by the North Coast Athletic Conference.

In the meantime, the NCAA Executive Committee Working Group, made up of presidents and chancellors of Divisions I, II and III, continues to examine issues facing the membership with regard to growth.

The working group is exploring the Association-wide impact of divisional membership and reclassification policies and studying ways of controlling Division III’s growth and addressing related membership issues within the Association without harming other divisions.

Among legislation the Council agreed to sponsor for the 2007 Convention is a proposal that would require 20 institutions or two conferences to sponsor legislative proposals. The purpose would be to protect the membership from special interest legislation. The current threshold is eight institutions, which is less than 2 percent of the membership. The Council believes that increasing the number of required sponsors would increase pre-Convention legislative dialogue and improve the quality of legislative concepts submitted for membership vote.

The Council also looked at membership proposals, governance structure legislation and non-controversial legislation slated for vote at the 2007 Convention.

A complete report of actions by the Management Council will be published in the July 31 issue of The NCAA News. Visit www.ncaa.org and click on “The NCAA News” tab.