Finn, DIII national SAAC gear up for 2022 NCAA Convention

"I'll go."

These two words changed the trajectory of Bridgett Finn's time in college and plans following her graduation from Lebanon Valley. A sophomore on the women's soccer team at the time after transferring from DeSales, Finn stepped up to go to the Middle Atlantic Conference meeting in the spring of 2019 when her campus Student-Athlete Advisory Committee needed a representative.

Over the next year, Finn became a board member for her conference SAAC; traveled to the 2020 NCAA Convention in Anaheim, California; applied to be a Division III national SAAC member; and was voted as vice chair of the committee at the virtual 2021 NCAA Convention.

"I honestly did not know what SAAC was at first. I was like, 'What could this be? What does it stand for?' I did not know," Finn said. "I've always stepped up as a leader throughout high school on my different sports teams that I played. And in college I was always looking for that next step to kind of lead others, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to use my voice and be empowered as a female athlete as well and have something to look forward to going to that was additional (to my sport)."

Finn serves on the Division III Championships Committee and the Board of Governors Student-Athlete Engagement Committee and was part of the Division III Strategic Positioning Platform Working Group. She represented the student-athlete voice and was the SAAC liaison as the group reviewed the existing strategic positioning document, redesigning and reformatting it as a resource for current and future Division III student-athletes. 

"One of the main things I think I've learned about being a part of Division III SAAC is mainly working with a team and communication," Finn said. "I think one thing that other student-athletes who aren't in national SAAC or these committees don't see is that we're not just talking with our committees four times a year when we have our meetings. We're constantly talking every single month within Division III SAAC. We have a group chat where we talk about different things and bounce around ideas between each other."

With Anthony Francois, a former men's volleyball player at John Jay, as chair, the committee is heading into the 2022 NCAA Convention in Indianapolis after a year of focusing on three initiatives: diversity and inclusion, mental and physical health, and Special Olympics. 

Inclusion efforts have included reviewing the language used in documents across the committee and participating in multiple campaigns throughout the year. In May, Division III SAAC led the division's annual mental health social media campaign, in which members shared resources across platforms and encouraged schools to break the stigma surrounding mental health. August marked the 10-year anniversary of the division's partnership with Special Olympics. Division III SAAC celebrated virtually at its summer meeting, and the committee is planning events for this year's in-person Convention. 

A fourth focus of the committee has been on the slate of legislative proposals that will be voted on at the Division III business session at the annual NCAA Convention, including concepts pertaining to the constitution following last week's Special Convention. At the business session, national SAAC will share its positions on proposals with the entire Division III membership. Currently, there are nine legislative proposals.

"In January, we vote on the proposals that are brought up, but right now we're working on getting feedback from all the schools in our division and then conference feedback to bring to national SAAC," Finn said. "We're going to start writing our position papers for the proposals whether we support, oppose or abstain the pieces of legislation, and then we'll draft those position papers to say at Convention."

January will be the first time the committee has met in person since the 2020 NCAA Convention. This year SAAC welcomes more than 20 new members to the 44-person committee from the previous academic year. 

"This is our time to shine," Finn said. "January is going to be really special. I know we've been virtual for a while now — which I'm so glad we can at least be able to meet virtually — but the experience of being able to travel to Indianapolis is going to be really cool and just being able to meet each other and meet face to face will just be awesome."