AASU Captures 2006-07 Peach Belt Conference President's Academic Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 5-30-07

AASU Captures 2006-07 Peach Belt Conference Presidents' Academic Award

SAVANNAH, Ga. – Armstrong Atlantic State University has captured the 2007 Peach Belt Conference Presidents’ Academic Award, announced by the league at its annual meeting in Hilton Head, S.C. The award recognizes excellence in academics concerning all of an institution’s student-athletes and goes to the Pirates for the second straight year.

This spring, the Peach Belt asked each of the league’s 12 members to submit an undergraduate student body average GPA and a student-athlete average GPA for the academic year. These two numbers were then used to create a ratio for each school. The award is given to the school with the highest ratio, which in this first year went to Armstrong Atlantic State with a ratio of 1.1441. As a whole, Armstrong Atlantic State student-athletes carried a 2.97 GPA for the 2006-07 academic year, including a spring semester in which the entire athletic department’s GPA was above a 3.00 (3.012).

"I am extremely proud of our student athletes for their academic accomplishments," said University President Dr. Thomas Z. Jones, who also served as the President of the PBC Executive Committee for the 2006-07 academic year. "To be recognized by the Peach Belt Conference for the second consecutive year for outstanding academic achievement is a tribute to our student athletes, their coaches and the entire athletic department staff."

Academic success is nothing new to the Armstrong Atlantic State athletic department this year as 56 percent of the 137 student-athletes carried grade-point averages of 3.0 or better. Seventy-four of AASU student-athletes were named to the PBC Presidential Honor Roll while 46 student-athletes were named to the Dean’s List during the 2006-07 academic year. Four student-athletes carried perfect 4.0 GPAs for 2006-07 – junior softball player Kari Marsico, freshman women’s golfer Sandra Norstrom, junior women’s soccer player Ashley Elam and junior women’s tennis player Iuliia Stupak, the nation’s top-ranked singles and doubles player in Division II.

Senior volleyball player Traci Knuth became just the third student-athlete in AASU history – and first female student-athlete – to earn ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-America honors, while four others – men’s basketball player Patrick Sanou, women’s soccer player Holly Grulich, Stupak and fellow women’s tennis player Johanna Dahlback earned CoSIDA Academic All-District honors.

"We continue to be extremely proud of the hard work on the part of our student-athletes," Athletic Director Dr. Eddie Aenchbacher said. "These men and women demonstrate every day how to succeed in both the classroom and on the field of play. Our coaching staff continues to do a tremendous job of recruiting these academic athletes and supporting their efforts in a number of ways."

Armstrong Atlantic State University, part of the University System of Georgia, was founded in 1935. The university offers more than 75 undergraduate and graduate academic programs in the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Education, the College of Health Professions, and the School of Computing. Armstrong Atlantic today serves more than 6,700 students. While 43 percent are from the Savannah-Chatham County area, the diverse student population comes from nearly all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and more than 70 countries.

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