Approval of Previous Minutes —

Motion to approve the minutes from April 17, 2026 :  Megan Greene motions to approve, Matt Tidwell seconds – minutes approved without objection. 

New Business —

Jana goes over the charges and asks which members would like to work on each charge (s): 

• Standing Charges 1-3 : the committee will come back to. 
• Standing Charge 4: Request to remove charge # 4 – discussed running this past SenEx for approval of removal but decided to keep them as overarching and use the KAI charges to be more specific.

Standing Charge 5: 

Megan Greene volunteers to help with this charge with help from Ryan King

When the subcommittees are put together, they meet outside of this group. Then they report back to Jana so there are items to go over at the next meeting. 

The charges are often very broad. The committee discusses the charges and how specific they should be. 

Specific Charges

1. Continue to refine advising tools, academic systems, and communication surrounding athletic travel and absences -- Shu Tosaka, Kianna Csolle, Tom Ringenberg

    

2. Continue to work on expanding flexible course options – Ryan shares how there may be some challenges with practice schedules and morning practices: 

• It’s important to have availability for 2nd semester courses as international students are arriving later -- 2nd 8 week courses – this is very helpful with FacEx petitions as it minimizes the need for having late courses added. 
• Classes for international students need to be on the ground and in-person. This can be a challenge with summer courses, as many are online

• Kianna Csolle, Megan Greene, Wendy Karpowitz, Zoe Pillinos. 

   

3. Continue to work towards enhancing student engagement – Austin Bogina 

4. Keep up to date with Protect College Sports Act of 2026: Senate votes on this next week, but in a holding pattern until the house votes – Lisa Wolf-Wendel. Jillian Opie, Kianna Csolle, Wendy Karpowtiz  

5. Monitor and address the overall well-being of student-athletes including nutrition, physical health, mental health, and safety – Tait Haag

6. Consider the effects of university changes regarding core requirements, majors, minors, certificates, etc. and determine the effect on athletes – Megan Greene

7. Help to ensure KU maintains athletic compliance by assisting KAI with needed resources. Matt Tidwell (communicate with Colin Becker)

8. Investigate graduate certificate offerings and explore the potential addition of in-person certificate courses to better serve international students -- Lisa Wolf-Wendel, Wendy Karpowitz, Kianna Csolle

9. Move training-related registration holds to September -- Lisa Wolf-Wendel, Jillian Opie

10. Gain a better understanding of how the KU campus is approaching artificial intelligence so that we can provide informed guidance and resources to our student-athletes. Shea Marney (through the Presidential Commission)

11. Explore the possibility of allowing new student-athletes to meet with their athletic advisor rather than a JAAA university advisor during orientation. If approved, develop a consistent process for implementation. Shu Tosaka, Steph Mahal, Ian Adkins.

Graduate Certificate Offerings: have seen a drop in Grad Certificates, and especially a drop with in-person graduate certificates. With the age-based eligibility model, education has been extended as undergraduate students are looking for graduate degrees that they can complete in 1 year.

• Many fall sports – students arrive in summer and have graduated as an undergraduate, but many students have another year and would like to pursue a graduate certificate. 
• If new federal regulations go through, undergraduate students must pursue a graduate option. They can’t do a second undergraduate degree. 
• From a campus perspective, we don’t want students starting a degree they’re not able to finish – so GC are a great option 
• Students that are here for a 5th year need to be enrolled full time and pass 6 of their 9 credit hours. 

Sexual Assault Prevention Training “Hold” – it’s a SAPEC hold but it doesn’t go on until the first week of Oct. Is there any way the hold can go on earlier in the semester? If the hold goes on Sept 1, Athletics could know who needs to complete this prior to their enrollment. Lisa Wolf-Wendel is going to try and investigate this  – and see if the SAPEC hold can start on Sept 1. Jillian is also going to ask the student SAPEC committee. 

Athletic tutors are trying to closely work w/ campus regarding AI and academic misconduct. Athletics would like to know what conversations are happening.  They’ve met w/ Wingspan and have met with TRIO. 

Because KU doesn’t have a policy – how are instructors talking to students about AI. All instructors are acting differently. Have conversations with other campus partners? Student confidence is being diminished. Faculty need to have statement on their syllabi regarding how they may use AI in that class. 

The AI Checking devices are not always accurate – students are often not aware of what they’re exactly doing wrong. 

The last thing is the advisement process for incoming student athletes – students will go through orientation and go through a schedule. Want to be campus partners with JAAA by being available during this time. Instead of going to University Advising appt, Athletics would take this task and work with JAAA. This is a partnership with JAAA. This would likely work well for freshman Year, but after freshman year, students should work with their unit as well. 

Jana is going to e-mail out committee assignments. Requested updates at least once between meetings.

Josh Arpin shares that a new first year experience in School of Business – take 5 courses that are already required classes – take them in small cohort ahead of time. In addition to 5 courses, students will take co-curricular (study abroad options, etc). This shouldn’t cause any large issues.

Next meeting scheduled for Friday, Dec 4 at 12:00pm in Wagnon Conference Room. 

Meeting adjourned.