33 The faculty, staff and athletic department have to be satisfied with the performance of student-athletes during the fall semester. Athletes have continued to structure their daily routines and, as a result, increased their cumulative GPA. As a whole, the athletic department announced that the student-athletes’ GPA was 3.303 on the semester and their cumulative GPA is now 3.257. There were some new teams to the top of the list for the fall semester. Women’s cross country led the way with an impressive 3.730, while the softball team followed closely behind with a 3.666 and the women’s soccer team scored a 3.560. The last team to remain above the dean’s list during the semester was women’s basketball with a 3.505 GPA. Women’s golf dropped from the last few years to 3.450, while the volleyball team, who currently averages the highest cumulative GPA of all teams, earned a 3.447. Other teams who reached GPA’s of 3.0 or higher included women’s tennis, women’s track, men’s tennis, men’s basketball, men’s cross country, men’s soccer and baseball. Men’s golf and men’s track were closely behind with a 2.962 and 2.787 respectively. The female athletes performed exceptionally well, claiming the top eight spots in the rankings, while the male teams finished ninth or lower. Nevertheless, the athletes did quite well as they performed .046 higher than their cumulative averages which means most did better than usual. In addition, all but four teams reached higher semester GPA’s than cumulative and were all fairly close to their cumulative average rankings. Although it takes a tremendous amount of drive to stay on top of both academics and athletics there seems to be a connection. Student-athletes typically perform very well in the classroom and can partially be explained by being forced to structure their time and become as productive as possible. With the spring athletics seasons approaching, new teams will be in season and will miss class time. However, most teams at the collegiate level have some degree of seasons in both semesters. In the end, the athletic department should be satisfied with the efforts of faculty and staff to work with their students being forced to miss time away from the classroom.
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