University officials held a public forum Tuesday to discuss improvements the Athletics Department can make in areas such as gender and ethnic diversity, academic integrity and commitment to NCAA rules and regulations as it seeks NCAA certification.

The forum, which lasted 40 minutes, is one step in the ongoing, 18-month-long accreditation process that the NCAA requires of all Division I schools. Schools must go through the accreditation process every 10 years to “ensure integrity in the institution’s athletics operations,” according to the NCAA.

Although university officials acknowledged that some minor improvements will be made within the Athletics Department, they were optimistic the NCAA would give them a grade of “fully certified.” The other possible grades are “certified with conditions” and “not certified.”

“[Being accredited] tells us we’ve been working in the right direction,” said Charles Wellford, the moderator of the public forum and faculty athletics representative. “There’s no benefit that you get. … It just confirms that we’re moving in the right direction and doing the right things for our athletic program to be an integral part of campus.”

The accreditation process, which the university has completed twice before — earning a grade of “fully certified” both times — started in February 2009 with the committee’s first meeting and will end in February 2011, when the NCAA will make its final decision.

The university must submit a self-study report to the NCAA by April 30. The NCAA will do an on-campus evaluation in September.

“They try to have a very wide range of meetings and conversations so that they are convinced that when we say, ‘We’ve met with these people, and we’re reflecting their views,’ they can feel confident that that’s the case,” Wellford said.

Wellford said this year’s process will formalize policies to deal with new NCAA rules. The NCAA implemented dashboard indicators in 2008, for instance, to help universities decide what to spend on athletics, but the university has not yet crafted an official policy.

“It’s those kinds of things in the governance area that are new requirements that we’re doing, but maybe aren’t in policy yet, and we need to get into policy,” Wellford said.

The committee also briefly addressed the much-criticized graduation rate of the men’s basketball team. A recent University of Central Florida study found that just 8 percent of this university’s basketball players who enrolled between 1999 and 2003 graduated within six years of taking their first class, but Associate Athletics Director Anton Goff said the rate has seen marked improvement in recent years.

“That’s definitely part of our improvement plan,” said Goff, who added the university installed a comprehensive academic improvement plan specific to the basketball program in 2004. “We realized the data wasn’t good. We wanted to make sure we identified that, didn’t hide from it and just made a concerted effort with the Athletic Department, the Athletic Council and the coaching staff.”

Cynthia Hale, assistant dean of the graduate school and chair of the Gender, Diversity and Student-athlete Well-being Subcommittee, also said the university found no major issues regarding diversity on the university’s athletic teams.

“The resources we use are in proportion to the general student body,” Hale said. “The scholarship money is being distributed evenly [among student-athletes]. … We thought things were done well, and the campus should be proud in its compliance with Title IX.”

The committee said its final report is about 80 percent complete.

“I feel like we’re doing a good job,” Goff said, “but there’s always room for improvement.”

engelke@umdbk.com