Stung by NCAA sanctions against more than half its membership, the Western Athletic Conference will look into initiatives to help its schools upgrade academic performance during its annual spring meetings next month.

The action comes after five of the nine conference members — including the University of Hawai'i — were sanctioned last month by the NCAA for some of their teams' failure to meet minimum academic standards as measured by the Academic Progress Rate.

"We may be the only conference — I'm sure we are the only conference — in the country where the majority of institutions are being penalized by the NCAA," Peter Nicholson, a UH-Manoa English professor and faculty athletic representative, told the school's faculty senate Wednesday.

A spokesman said the NCAA's APR will be on the agenda for the WAC Council, which meets May 1 and 2 in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The council is composed of athletic directors, senior women's administrators and faculty athletic representatives. Any action would be forwarded to the conference's board of directors, which is composed of president and chancellors, for approval. The board meets in June.

The NCAA instituted the APR to measure academic performance by member schools. It measures eligibility, continuity and graduation among athletes. Schools are awarded points for athletes who remain eligible, remain at the school and graduate.

Fresno State, Hawai'i, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State and San Jose State each had at least one sport sanctioned. Two of UH's 18 sports, baseball and football, were listed as underperforming.

UH was penalized 6.7 scholarships — five from football which has a maximum of 85 and 1.7 from baseball which has a ceiling of 11.7.

"The conference has some work to do — as well as the schools...," Nicholson said.

WAC Commissioner Karl Benson said, "I know that our institutions are all taking it very seriously and they are putting procedures into place to improve those numbers."

Benson said the conference's strategic plan, which is due to be finalized this year, will also have provisions addressing the APR. He said they will be "non-punitive providing encouragement and expectations, not penalties."

Nicholson said "there is a proposal that is moving forward to set a goal for the conference being in the upper 50 percentile of Division I schools in the country. How we're going to do that is going to be up to each institution. Each institution is facing the same challenges that we face."

On the Manoa campus, UH officials said they are looking at a series of proposals to take more effective control of athlete admissions, encourage academic performance and reduce time conflicts between academics and athletics."

Some changes have already been made in football where two players were cut from the spring roster for academic deficiencies and 10 withheld from practices. A minimum 2.5 grade point average was instituted for walk-ons to be considered for scholarships.

Neal Smatresk, Manoa vice chancellor for academic affairs, said, further changes for the whole athletic program should be ready for implementation as coaches recruit for 2007. He said what UH does will be separate from whatever the WAC recommends. "What we're doing will be UH. It will be something that makes sense for us and our athletics program."

Nicholson told the Manoa faculty senate the situation is "either raise your academic performance or be penalized."

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com.