HONOLULU – Student-athletes at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa have posted new all-time high scores in the NCAA's Academic Performance Rate (APR), according to figures released today by the NCAA.
The APR is calculated based on the number of student-athletes who are academically eligible to compete, the number who remain at UHM, and the number who graduate within five years. 1000 is a perfect score. Teams with a four-year score below 925 can be penalized by a loss of scholarships; teams with a four-year score below 900 are subject to more severe penalties, culminating in a loss of eligibility for post-season play.
Every UHM team but one (Women's Tennis) had a one-year score for 2007-08 that surpassed either its preceding one-year score or its four-year average. The upward trend is confirmed across the board. Only two UHM teams now have a four-year average below 925, Baseball and Men's Basketball, both at 922, and of these, only Baseball will lose a fraction of a scholarship next year. These are also the two teams that posted the biggest single-year improvement, Baseball going from 892 to 991 in 2007-08, and Men's Basketball going from 821 to 1000.
Women's Volleyball was singled out for recognition by the NCAA two weeks ago for having posted an APR of 1000 for three years in a row. The other teams with one-year APRs of 1000 for 2007-08 are Men's Basketball, Men's Golf, Men's Tennis, Women's Basketball, Women's Cross Country, Softball, and Women's Water Polo.
This announcement comes only one week after the Athletics Department recognized 183 student-athletes with outstanding academic records at its annual Scholar-Athlete Banquet.
“I'm very happy to see the 'corporate culture' changes we are making in the athletic department are paying dividends in the APR scores,” athletics director Jim Donovan said. “It's all about an attitude of being the best we can be in competition and graduating our student athletes. I'm especially grateful for the attitude and effort of our academic staff and our coaches because they set the tone on academics. Good grades and academic progress towards graduation are an expectation at UH, and I'm proud to see this philosophy is embraced by our student-athletes, our support staff, our coaches and the administration.”
According to Dr.
Peter Nicholson, Faculty Athletics Representative, UHM cut by more than half the number of points it lost for eligibility in 2007-08 and by nearly half the number it lost for retention, compared to the average for the preceding four years. It also received 11 bonus points for student-athletes who returned to school in order to graduate.
“We calculate our one-year all-team APR for 2007-08 at 980, and our new four-year all-team APR as 950,” Nicholson said. “These are very impressive numbers.” (Note: The NCAA provides APR figures only for individual teams, not for all teams combined.)
Manoa Chancellor Dr. Virginia Hinshaw expressed her delight at the student-athletes' performance.
“We want to give credit to everyone who was involved in this success,” Hinshaw said. “To the Athletics Department and its staff, especially
Marilyn Moniz-Kaho'ohanohano, who coordinated the team that instituted new policies for improving our APR; to the staff of Student-Athlete Academic Services, who provide such strong academic support for our student-athletes; to the coaches, who have put new emphasis on bringing academically qualified students to UHM and who have set high academic expectations for their players; and of course to the student-athletes themselves, because it is their hard work and their success that we celebrate."
