The University of Minnesota will require all freshman student-athletes to live in residence halls and consider changes to its recruiting program in the wake of a sexual assault scandal involving several football players.

Athletics Director Mark Coyle told the Board of Regents on Friday that most freshman athletes already live in on-campus housing but the mandate will enable the U to provide more support.

As for recruiting, he said the U would consider training host athletes with clear expectations for what should happen when they welcome high school recruits to campus.

A disciplinary panel voted to expel four football players and suspend two others for their roles in an alleged Sept. 2 sexual assault of a woman in an off-campus apartment. A high school recruit also had sex with the woman, according to an investigative report. Hennepin County prosecutors declined to file charges in the case after an investigation by police.

Coyle’s report to the board Friday was titled “Intercollegiate athletics: Developing the whole person.”

He said student-athletes get about four hours of training each year on the student code of conduct, which covers sexual harassment and assault, hazing and academic dishonesty.

The challenge, he said, is getting athletes to adopt the model behaviors.

Coyle said the university will update its training. Athletes are especially interested, he said, in understanding the disciplinary process that the football players just went through and how it differs from criminal prosecution.

Regents were more interested in how to prevent athletes from getting into trouble in the first place.

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Darrin Rosha, a regent from Independence, Minn., said the issue is “acting right.”

“We’ve had these kinds of (training) programs in the past. What are we going to be doing differently from before?” he said. “What have we learned from this experience that will yield a different result?” Related Articles Could Gophers receiver Rashod Bateman come back for 2020 season?

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Regent Linda Cohen said she’s amazed by how much training athletes were getting and suggested the university needs to take a different approach.

“It’s important that athletes not merely understand the process of what happens (when they get into trouble), but how do you change behavior?” she said.

University President Eric Kaler said a task force that includes student-athletes is expected to bring him recommendations soon.

“We will continue to improve in this space. We have a way to go,” he said.