UA reports higher GPA among Razorback student-athletes

University of Arkansas officials reported Wednesday (May 22) that the grade point average among all student-athletes rose in the most recently completed semester.

UA officials also on Wednesday announced two hires to the Razorback academics staff.

Razorback student-athletes improved the fall semester grade point average this year.  Arkansas posted a 3.06 GPA, up from 3.04 a year ago. The spring numbers were also up going from 3.10 in 2012 to 3.124 in the most recent semester.

“We are extremely proud of our more than 460 Razorback student-athletes who are excelling in the classroom while working toward graduation,” Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics Jeff Long said in the statement. “Our coaches and athletic department staff have challenged our student-athletes to achieve personal bests academically. They have responded by showing measurable progress culminating with our best GPA in five years. Congratulations to our student-athletes for their commitment to success and representing our University and our state.”

GPA STATS
The more than 460 student-athletes raised the department’s overall GPA to 3.09 for the 2012-13 academic year, up from 3.07 last year and that number is the highest mark since 2007-08.

Nine of the 19 Razorback athletic teams increased their team GPAs from a season ago. Those teams include baseball, football, men’s golf, men’s cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field, women’s basketball, women’s golf and swimming and diving.

Razorback baseball, men’s golf, women’s basketball, women’s golf and swimming and diving teams all had their best team GPAs since the 2007-08 season and 18 of the 19 athletic teams posted a cumulative GPA of 2.60 or higher this season.

The Razorback Athletic Department had 230 of our 460 student-athletes post a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better with 50% of the student-athletes with 3.0 GPAs or better for their careers. In addition 241 student-athletes or 52% in the fall and 245 or 53% in the spring were better than 3.0.

The Razorback football team posted a 2.4 fall semester GPA, the highest fall since 2008. They had a 2.59 spring semester mark which is the program’s best since the spring of 2009.

NEW HIRES
Christine Scheets joins the Office for Student-Athlete Success as the lead learning specialist and Ragean Hill is the director of football academic counseling.

Scheets has seven years of learning specialist experience at the University of Miami where she conducted weekly meetings with student-athletes, coordinated, hired and trained staff and tutors and met with prospective student-athletes and their families.

Scheets worked as a reading teacher at Miami Norland Senior High. She has approximately 11 years of experience teaching students and eight years of experience working with at-risk and learning disabled student-athletes at the collegiate level.

Hill joins the program with 10 years of experience at BCS institutions. Most recently, Hill worked with Kansas State University as an assistant director for student support programs supervising all of the academic counselors, student works, tutors, class checkers and learning specialists.

Hill worked as a program director for football academic services monitoring each players’ eligibility and degree completion. Hill also worked at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Nebraska in similar capacities.