NIU President John La Tourette announced Wednesday that Ray Dembinski will become NIU’s faculty representative to the National Collegiate Athletic Association and Earl “Gip” Seaver will succeed Dembinski as NIU Athletic Board chair.

“I’m putting together a team to lead us through the next five years as we phase out income fund support for intercollegiate athletics totally by July 1, 1998,” La Tourette said.

“I hope to see continuity throughout this period as the Athletic Board will have to take responsibility for establishing a more supportive campus climate for intercollegiate athletics,” the president added. “The program must have maximum opportunity to generate funding necessary to replace the $1.6 million in income fund cuts that will be reallocated to academics, as announced Sept. 4.”

Dembinski, who chaired NIU’s Athletic Board since Aug. 15, 1989, succeeds Nancy Vedral as the school’s faculty liaison to the NCAA, taking over a role Vedral had held since 1979.

La Tourette said he expects Seaver and the Board to continue Vedral’s strong attention to compliance and academic integrity and to retain tight oversight of budgets, while adding new efforts “to build campus support and to project an appropriate image off campus.”