· Secretary Jeff Hodges (North Alabama) and Director of Internal Operations Will Roleson have completed our annual directory update process and the PDF version was made available on the CoSIDA web site on Oct. 31. We encourage each school to alert their respective media representatives to the 2011-12 online E-Directory (where the PDF also can be downloaded) and distribute it to their media representatives.   

NCAA      

· On October 16, Executive Director John Humenik sent a letter to Greg Shaheen, Interim Executive Vice President of NCAA Championships and Alliances, on behalf of the CoSIDA Board of Directors and CoSIDA's divisional leadership presidents and chairs. Humenik's letter was in response to Shaheen's recent letter to the intercollegiate community which outlined the NCAA's internal review of and changes in the NCAA championship operations structure.   

While attending the DII Conference Commissioners meeting in Indianapolis (Oct. 12-13), CoSIDA President Tom DiCamillo had visited with Shaheen concerning his letter and also discussed with Shaheen the upcoming response letter from Humenik. The letter indicated a strong interest by CoSIDA's Board and its divisional leadership groups to be a resource as it relates to the NCAA reviewing centralized event credentialing, a streamlined communications processes, championship manuals and publications, event programs, consolidated statistics/score reporting processes, media venue setups, event crisis communications and the playing rules interpretation database.

This letter is another example of CoSIDA's strategic approach and continual outreach to the NCAA, especially with the DII and DIII national staffs, to let them know we can be a resource with these types of projects/initiatives. Such outreach has helped build improved working relationships between the NCAA and CoSIDA.

· John Humenik is working with NCAA Director of Media and Public Relations Erik Christianson on meeting and trip details for the CoSIDA/divisional leaders who will attend the NCAA Convention in Indianapolis in mid- January.

 NACDA   

· As part of the 2009 spring partnership agreement signed with NACDA, CoSIDA's leadership continues to provide a "CoSIDA Corner" for each NACDA Athletics Administration Magazine issue. CoSIDA President Tom DiCamillo (Pac West Conference) wrote the November column, focusing on the expanded Capital One Academic All-America program, and that column be read HERE. Published in October, November, December, February, Mary, April, June and August, each Athletics Administration Magazine issue is sent to 10,000-plus university and athletics administrators with CoSIDA's voice, thoughts, and expertise being shared with these key constituents.   

College Division Management Advisory Committee (CDMAC)  

· Blake Timm (Pacific - Ore.), Chair of CoSIDA's CDMAC, held a CDMAC conference call on Oct. 26. The committee discussed potential panel topics for College Division programming at the 2012 CoSIDA St. Louis Convention. A number of committee members also forwarded topic ideas from others in the CoSIDA membership. The committee will vote for its top three topics and send those to the Convention Programming Committee in early November. The leadership group also discussed potential nominees for CoSIDA's Special Awards program and possible names to forward to the CoSIDA Board for a replacement on the Board.   

· REMEMBER- Always, refer to our Academic All-America® program and its respective Academic All-District  teams, Academic All-America® teams and Academic All-America® Hall of Fame, with our sponsor Capital One placed prior to all "Academic All-America" mention.   

· CoSIDA  and Jostens/MTM Recognition have agreed to have Josten's/MTM coordinate and handle all awards fulfillment for the 2011-12 Capital One Academic All-America program. Barb Kowal, CoSIDA's Director of External Affairs, worked with Jostens/MTM in the bid process, budget evaluation and final agreement document.   

· Access the master schedule for nomination deadlines/ team announcements and new district alignments for the 2011-12 Capital One Academic All-America® program, along with the 2011-12 Academic All-America Committee list. 

We are excited that the much anticipated expansion of the Capital One Academic All-America® program from a two-division selection process (University and College Division) to a four-division selection process (NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III and College Division (NAIA, Canada and Two-Year) is underway. Nominations for football, men's and women's soccer and women's volleyball have been completed and Academic All-District voting for those programs is underway.  We remind everyone that you must be a 2011-12 member of CoSIDA to nominate your deserving student-athletes and vote in the program.  Soccer voting closes Tuesday, Nov. 1 and football and volleyball voting close Tuesday, Nov. 8. 

 · Again, a reminder that nominations for the Capital One Academic All-America Hall of Fame (Class of 2012) will run through Friday, Nov. 4. Find detailed information on nomination criteria, nomination form etc., HERE.

 · The Board and AAA Committee remind CoSIDA members that CoSIDA's "Academic All-America®" mark is federally registered. If you see any other organizations, including coaching associations, using this registered trademark, immediately contact CoSIDA Executive Director John Humenik (jhumenik@bellsouth.net) and AAA Committee chair emeritus Dick Lipe (Bentley University) at rlipe@bentley.edu. We will have our legal counsel, Collegiate Images, follow up with a "cease and desist" letter regarding trademark infringement.

· Many times during the year we find that our own membership is using "Academic All-America®" in releases that they prepare for student-athletes receiving academic achievement awards from other organizations when those organizations refer to their awards as "All-Academic," "Scholar-Athlete," "Academic All-Star," etc.  Please be cognizant of only using "Academic All-America®" in relation to CoSIDA's program. There are NO exceptions.  

Strategic Branding/Marketing & Communications 

· Eric McDowell (Union, N.Y.), CoSIDA's 3rd VP, held discussions during October with Dr. Janet Fink, President of the North American Society for Sports Management (NASSM), on developing a partnership with CoSIDA so that sports management programs around the nation can assist our profession with a grass roots effort. This grass roots effort will provide students with background, information and opportunities on the sports communications profession. There are 327 sport management programs in the United States. Building such relationships with campus deans and faculty, via the NASSM leadership, could result in guest speaking and teaching opportunities for CoSIDA members; in turn this could lead to more students considering our profession as a career and may also provide student help for SIDs. McDowell and CoSIDA Executive Director John Humenik are scheduling a December meeting with Dr. Fink to discuss this important initiative. McDowell will seek opportunities to have representatives of each organization attend and present at future respective national conventions and meetings.

· At the Marco Island Convention the Strategic Branding Committee, chaired by then-1st VP Tom Di Camillo, made a recommendation to the Board that CoSIDA's organizational title be reviewed and analyzed as part of an ongoing strategic branding review process. First VP Joe Hornstein (UCF) was then appointed by President-elect Di Camillo to chair the Strategic Branding Committee for the 2011-12 year. Working with  NCAA Director of Media and Public Relations Eric Christianson, CoSIDA is in the process of seeking a branding management firm to assist in this evaluation process.     

· Executive Director John Humenik is providing the CoSIDA Board of Directors and divisional leadership an update/progress report on CoSIDA's Strategic Master Plan and various initiatives that the Board adopted in June of 2008.  Starting in August, Humenik is taking one of the established initiatives each week and providing progress updates on those initiative after three years and outlining focus points for the remaining two years of the plan.

· In October, 23 CoSIDA-based stories appeared on NACDA's Daily Review email blast. There were 21 Daily Review emails sent during the month. Due to this effort, that primarily came about due to CoSIDA's decision in December of 2008 to become an affiliated partner within the NACDA organizational umbrella, several thousands of university and athletics administrators are exposed to professional and organizational news that only appeared on the CoSIDA website in the past and was thus only viewed by our membership.

· Also in October, two CoSIDA-based features/stories were posted on NCAA.com and/or NCAA.org and circulated a total of four times on the NCAA Daily News Direct email blast.  

· In October, 35 articles were posted on our organizational website (CoSIDA.com). In addition, the CoSIDA Twitter page (www.twitter.com/CoSIDAnews) had 292 tweets/postings during the month, all of them with breaking news, timely topics and comments for athletic communication professionals.

Miscellaneous   

Eclaro Sports    

· John Humenik worked with Jay Williams, VP of Eclaro Sports, CoSIDA's official professional development partner, and CoSIDA's divisional leadership presidents/chairs to have the CoSIDA leaders send a letter to their respective membership groups regarding the confidential Eclaro resume bank for our membership.  This resume bank, which now has more than 400 personal resumes from CoSIDA members, can then be made available - in a confidential manner- to schools/AD's when a communications-based opening occurs.