FARMVILLE, Va. – Longwood student-athletes have raised the bar again.
In an academic performance that is the athletics department's best of the past decade, Longwood's 14 varsity programs combined to produce a 3.14 grade point average (GPA) during the fall 2018 semester that was the Lancers' highest since the department began compiling data in the fall of 2008.
The collective 3.14 GPA includes the academic performances of more than 200 Longwood student-athletes, 22 of which made the President's List for achieving perfect 4.0 GPAs for the semester, while another 56 made the Dean's List for finishing within the 3.50 to 3.99 range. Longwood women's soccer had five of those President's List selections, while women's basketball and women's lacrosse each had four.
Ten of Longwood's 14 teams surpassed the 3.00 GPA threshold, including women's cross country, which led all teams with a 3.57, and men's tennis, which led all men's teams with a 3.49.
"On behalf of the entire athletic department, we are exceptionally proud of what our student-athletes accomplished this past semester and congratulate them on a job well done," said Longwood interim athletics director
Michelle Meadows, who has presided over and shaped Longwood's academic advisory and student-athlete enhancement units during her 14 years in the department.
"Each semester we have aimed at incrementally higher academic goals, and our student-athletes have yet to find their ceiling. This upward trend is a testament to their hard work in their academic pursuits, a commitment to academic achievement by our coaches and support staff, and an environment fostered by our faculty and the academic community at Longwood that is primed for success. Specifically, I would like to recognize
Hannah Ledger and
Megan Miller in our academic services unit, and our student-athlete enhancement team for their hard work in pushing our student-athletes and our department to new academic heights."
Longwood's fall accolades follow a spring semester in which Lancer student-athletes recorded a 3.11 term GPA, making this past fall the fourth consecutive semester that the department surpassed its previous term's combined mark. That rise began with a 2.95 in the fall of 2016 and continued with a 3.03 in the spring of 2017, a 3.05 in fall 2017, the 3.11 this past spring and the 3.14 in the fall.
Longwood men's basketball, women's basketball, men's cross country, women's cross country, men's tennis, women's lacrosse and softball all set semester GPA highs for the past six terms, with men's basketball (
Griff Aldrich), women's basketball (
Rebecca Tillett), men's and women's cross country (
Daniel Wooten) and men's and women's tennis (
Jhonnatan Medina Alvarez) doing so under first-year head coaches.
That success was widespread across Longwood's student-athlete population with more than 60 percent of Longwood's student-athletes earning GPAs of at least 3.00 for the semester, and 59 percent currently hold cumulative GPAs of at least 3.00.
"These are no small accomplishments," said Meadows, a former three-time Academic All-American softball player at Virginia Tech and a member of the Virginia Tech Hall of Fame.
"The life of a student-athlete extends well beyond the box scores we see and follow; they have responsibilities as students, teammates, representatives of Longwood University, and as young men and women preparing for life after graduation. We continually strive to coach, develop and mentor student-athletes in every facet of their experience so that they are equipped to succeed in any arena they face, both now and into their futures."
That performance came in the midst of a fall semester in which Longwood's women's soccer and field hockey teams both earned top-three conference finishes, and men's basketball put together its best 15-game start since 2000-01. Longwood also celebrated its highest NCAA Graduation Success Rate of 90 this past November.
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