Chris Larson wrote:When I assembled the student populations of our member schools, I just listed them in an excel table. The natural break (which was near where we thought it should be) was really obvious, so we proposed 12,000 undergraduates as the criteria for mandatory UMLL D1 status.
The league voted to accept this criteria. I don't recall the margin, but don't remember it being contriversial. Thata's probably because small schools were then allowed to petition to play in the larger division. Team reps were asked to make a presentation. Some teams did well, some teams did poorly. The entire league voted on each individual petition and our D2 (formerly Div B) was formed. I'll be honest and state that at that time, a lot of the evaluation was based on competitiveness.
We did not have (nor have we ever had) any large institution teams interested in playing in the small school division.
The schools that were denied D1 status were initially disappointed, but ended up embracing the idea that we would support them as an equal to D1 and the result is we have 2 big time players in D2 and 3 or so up and comers. The addition of the D2 National tournament really validated this assignmant for these teams
It sounds to me as though you'll have a tough time placing 1 or 2 teams.
This sounds like you are dealing with some mature teams, a good example that we can hopefully follow.
For the record, I fully support that 12,000 number. It would keep WWU in D2 and would put PSU in D1. We've had some different numbers thrown around for PSU in terms of enrollment, but the undergrad number has averaged around 17,000 from the different sources.
I think the 12,000 number is completely fair, enforceable, and will provide us with the most logical split for the present and future. In order to avoid this debate in the future, it would be prudent to put this in writing in the Bylaws if voted upon by the teams.
