WASHINGTON—Following a working meeting here, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics announced that John J. DeGioia has joined the Commission. President of Georgetown for the past five years, DeGioia has been an administrator and professor at the Washington, D.C., institution since his graduation in 1979.
At its meeting, the Knight Commission reviewed a final draft of the report being made by the NCAA’s Presidential Task Force on the Future of Division I Intercollegiate Athletics. The Commission will release a statement about the report later this month when the NCAA publicly releases the report.
The Commission also received a report by participants in the U.S. Men’s Basketball Summit, hosted last month by the NCAA and NBA in Indianapolis. Commission members were encouraged by the agreement among summit participants to continue efforts to transform the youth basketball development system to reduce the problems that currently affect college-bound athletes. The Commission was pleased to hear that the efforts will focus on young players’ social and educational development as well as their basketball skill development.
DeGioia holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Georgetown. He has helped to recruit intellectual leaders to the faculty and secured substantial funding for scholarly research and academic programs. In 2001, he became the first layman to be named president of the Jesuit institution.
“Jack DeGioia has been deeply involved in intercollegiate athletics at one of our nation’s elite institutions that competes at the very highest level,” said Clifton R. Wharton, Jr., Co-Chairman of the Commission. “His perspective will be a tremendous asset to our work as the Knight Commission moves forward.”
Under DeGioia’s leadership, Georgetown completed in 2003 the largest fund-raising effort in its history. The $1-billion capital campaign benefited Georgetown’s Main, Medical, and Law Center campuses to secure endowment funds for curriculum and faculty support, increase student financial aid, and build and renovate facilities.
DeGioia addresses broader issues in higher education as a board member of the American Council on Education, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and the Campus Compact, and as an executive committee member of the Council on Competitiveness. He is chair of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education and serves on the Business-Higher Education Forum.
The Commission plans to meet again in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 22, 2007. An agenda for this meeting, which will be open to the public, will be made available in December.
