(NOTE: Because of a clerical error, two additional student-athletes were previously listed as having earned this distinction. We apologize for the confusion.)
WALTHAM, Mass. — Three Brandeis University student-athletes have been selected to the 2015-16 University Athletic Association President’s Council Scholar-Athlete Team. In order to be eligible for this honor, a student-athlete must earn first-team All-Association honors while carrying a 3.50 or greater grade-point average beyond their freshman season.
Brandeis’s selections are recent graduates Adam Berger of Concord, N.H., and the men’s track and field team and Mathilde Robinson of Miami, Fla., and the women’s soccer team; and rising junior Ben Woodhouse of Suffield, Conn., and the men’s soccer team.
Berger won the 2016 UAA title in the triple jump at the association outdoor track and field championships. A graduate student, Berger graduated with a 3.81 GPA after earning a master’s in science in computational linguistics.
Robinson is a two-time President’s Council Scholar-Athlete team member who helped carry Brandeis women’s soccer to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament and was the University’s nominee for the NCAA Woman of the Year honor. She graduated with a 3.50 GPA and degrees in business and psychology with a minor in legal studies.
Woodhouse is the only returning member of the President’s Council Scholar-Athlete team after a sophomore season in which he started 17 of the team’s 22 games and finished 2nd in the conference in goals-against average and save percentage. He owns a 3.86 GPA as an economics and business double major.
The UAA Presidents Council created this special recognition in 2009. The original recommendation to establish this honor came from the UAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and was supported by the Athletic Administrators and Delegates Committees.
The UAA has recognized exceptional academic achievement by its student-athletes since 1998 when the Presidents Council established a program of All-Academic recognition for student-athletes who carry a cumulative grade point average that meets the threshold for Academic All-America® recognition (currently a 3.30 GPA). On average, approximately 56% of eligible sophomore, junior, and senior student-athletes from UAA member teams have met that threshold each year. “While our student-athletes appreciated the All-Academic recognition, they sought something that would more directly recognize the combination of academic and athletic excellence that is at the core of the UAA philosophy,” commented UAA Executive Secretary Dick Rasmussen. “In proposing the concept of the award, one of our SAAC members suggested — as UAA student-athletes this is what we do, this is who we are.”
As a group, UAA student-athletes and teams have consistently demonstrated high levels of both academic and athletic achievement. The UAA Presidents Council Scholar-Athlete Team recognition demonstrates the success of these principles at the level of the individual student-athlete.
Biennial studies completed by the Association over the last 15 years have consistently shown that the cumulative grade point averages of athletic teams have been statistically equal to or greater than the campus population GPA. In the most recent study, covering the 2012-13 academic year, student-athletes in seven of eight women’s sports studied and student-athletes in six of nine men’s sports studied across the UAA had average cumulative GPA’s equal to or higher than the overall GPA average for the general student body on UAA campuses. Of the 66 women’s teams and 69 men’s teams included in the study, 82 teams (61 percent) met or exceeded the existing 3.30 GPA standard for nominating individuals for Academic All-America® recognition.
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