The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
A Message To The Blazer Nation
6/9/2010 12:00:00 AM | General
June 9, 2010
The college athletics experience is one that is filled with many ups and downs, peaks and valleys. Daily, we work to prepare our student-athletes for how to react to these moments, whether they come in competition as a Blazer, in their life as a student-athlete, or in their time after graduation.
In the life of our athletic department, today is one of those moments, as the NCAA releases APR rates nationally that include unacceptably low scores for our men's basketball and football teams in the recent past.
APR, or Academic Progress Rate, is a formula based on a rolling academic average of a four-year time window that includes variables like student-athlete eligibility and retention. So today's numbers do not come as a surprise - they fall in line with what we have previously said to expect. In fact, because of the time span included in today's report, we know that it will be a couple of years before we begin to see the full positive effect of the academic culture change that we have instilled at UAB.
But there is plenty of good news, and I want to take this opportunity to tell you about what our student-athletes are doing in the classroom today and to tell you about a department that is committed not merely to hitting academic benchmarks but to achieving a standard of academic excellence.
Both our men's basketball and football teams fall into the third tier of APR penalties, meaning that we could have received a post-season ban along with the loss of scholarships and practice time. Because of our transformed approach to academics and commitment to an APR Improvement Plan, the NCAA has granted both sports waivers from postseason bans. Further, because of the continued improvement in our football APR beginning in the fall of 2007, our football program has been granted full relief from all penalties. This is a significant statement by the NCAA that speaks to the department-wide priority that has been placed on academic improvement.
The creation of the new Hire Student Academic Center and the formation of academic oversight committees have already paid dividends as 14 of our 16 teams were above the 925 multi-year rate threshold, with eleven teams maintaining a multi-year rate of greater than 940. This is the second consecutive year in which we have seen marked improvement, but success in any one year has never been our academic mission - it has always been to create a program that will foster success far into the future.
We coach our athletes to deal with adversity and grow through it to achieve greater success, and that is what we are doing today as an athletic department. We are taking the lessons learned over the past decade and applying them to every step that we take forward together, ensuring that UAB Athletics will always be an example of the very best that our university is and can be.
