Chapman’s Admission Due for Vote Tonight

The Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference plans to vote tonight on whether to allow Chapman to join the conference.

Chapman, which announced in March 1992 that it was leaving the NCAA Division II for Division III, applied to join the SCIAC last June.

Chapman, which currently competes in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn., has been adhering to SCIAC rules in hopes of joining the conference in the 1994-95 school year. Chapman stopped offering new athletic scholarships--a condition for Division III status--last fall and like SCIAC coaches, Chapman’s coaches aren’t recruiting off-campus.

The SCIAC’s faculty athletic committee is scheduled to hold a closed meeting tonight at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont. The committee will vote on the application and make a recommendation to the school presidents.

Chapman would be the ninth member of the conference, which is made up of Caltech, Claremont-Mudd, La Verne, Occidental, Pomona-Pitzer, Redlands, Whittier and Cal Lutheran, which joined in 1991.

Ralph Amey, an Occidental professor who is the committee chairman, said he was uncertain how the vote would go. Chapman needs a two-thirds majority--six of eight votes--for a positive recommendation.

Amey said Chapman’s president, Jim Doti, called him Tuesday to reiterate the university’s interest.

“I told him the only thing I can qualify at this point is if it is a negative vote, it won’t be a vote that means we say goodby and we hope to never see you again,” Amey said.