UW-Madison student athletes shattered school records last semester when they scored the highest academic rankings during a fall term in history, school officials announced last Friday.
With an average grade point average of 3.0 across all teams, athletic administrators and tutors said the GPA rise was admirable but could not be linked to one specific factor.
""There's been a steady climb of GPAs across time with our student athletes and we have a hard-working staff that truly cares about the students as well. I don't think there is one particular thing we can put our finger on,"" said Assistant Athletic Director for Academics Doug Tiedt when asked about the reasons behind the GPA improvement.
One reason for the higher GPAs may be the addition of another Fetzer Academic Center last year to the Kohl Center, according to Tiedt. The additional location makes it easier for athletes who have practices or are required to be at the Kohl Center to have access to academic support services previously only available to them at the main Fetzer Center by Camp Randall.
""There's more face-to-face time, which is a bit more personal and affective,"" said Mary Weaver, assistant director for academic services at the Kohl Center location.
Weaver also said the new location seems to encourage people who would otherwise not seek help to come in, even if only briefly.
One pattern shown by the athletes' GPAs was that many women's teams had higher averages than their male counterparts, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
The women's soccer team had an average of 3.355, women's rowing had a 3.211 and women's hockey had a 3.056. All are higher than the men's basketball team's cumulative average of 3.039, which was the highest of the male athletes' GPAs for fall 2006. The men's hockey team followed with 2.868 and then football with 2.688.
""There's a lot of factors that go into that, I don't think we can just identify one factor,"" said Tiedt when asked for possible reasons for the pattern.
Weaver and Fetzer Center Learning Specialist Toni O'Keefe also recognized the discrepancy between the women's and men's teams, but said she did not know why it exists.
In regards to future academic success for the student athletes, Tiedt said, ""My goal is to make sure all our students can maintain where they are at and continue to achieve, but I think it's unrealistic to think that they will go up and up. I know there comes a point where you reach a plateau and then hopefully maintain.""
