May 3, 2007
NORMAL, Ill. -
Director of Athletics Dr. Sheahon Zenger announced on Thursday that all athletic programs at Illinois State have exceeded the NCAA's threshold for Academic Progress Rate (APR) for the third straight year of its existence. In addition, 18 of ISU's 19 programs are above the national average.
"Our goal as an institution of higher learning is to strive for excellence in the classroom," Zenger said. "Our coaches and student-athletes have clearly made a commitment to academic excellence and I'm proud to say that Illinois State is in select company with our current placement in the overall APR status report."
The intent of the APR rating is to provide a real-time snapshot of an institution's current academic progress, and takes each scholarship student-athletes' eligibility status, retention and graduation into account on a term-by-term mathematical basis.
The only Redbird program that fell below the national average was men's basketball.
"Since the first release of APR scores in Spring 2005 we have dedicated ourselves to closely monitoring and improving the men's basketball APR score," said Cindy Harris, assistant athletics director for compliance. "We have developed and just begun to implement an APR improvement plan, which will help us to build our men's basketball score and avoid future penalties."
Men's cross country, men's tennis, women's basketball, softball and women's tennis achieved perfect 1,000 scores for the 2005-06 data year, while 12 of ISU's 19 intercollegiate programs improved their scores from the previous year.
