A recent report shows ISU athletes achieved a cumulative 2.92 gradepoint average for the fall 2004 semester, higher than the student body’s 2.83 average, the fifth time in six semesters that this has happened.

Donald Reed, director of Student-Athlete Services, is proud with the overall academic performance of the Cyclone student-athletes, but said there is room for improvement. His goal for the athletes is to have a cumulative GPA of 3.0.

“I am pleased with how we performed; we always like to be as high as we can,” Reed said. “We want to continue to grow, though. Right now, we are usually in the 2.8-2.9 area, and it’s very good to consistently be in that area.”

For the women, the basketball team achieved the highest GPA with a cumulative of 3.52, with the track and field team bringing up the rear with a 2.8. On the other side, the golf team led the men with a 3.08, while the basketball team had the lowest for both genders with a cumulative 2.13. Overall, the female athletes out-performed the males academically with a 3.11 average to the men’s 2.57.

Reed said the gender difference did not surprise him because it has happened in the past.

“It’s just one of those things that seems to happen each semester,” he said.

In addition, 74 athletes appeared on the Dean’s List, while almost half of the 380 athletes finished with a 3.0 or better.

Swimming coach Duane Sorenson said he was slightly disappointed with his team’s 3.18 average because his swimmers have had a 3.3 average for the previous six semesters.

Sorenson did say he received spring semester grades already and the cumulative average for the team was 3.3, back to where he wants them.

He says his swimmers perform better when they set goals because they work hard to obtain them.

“It was a matter of setting goals for the team and asking some members to hit the books a bit more,” Sorenson said.

In addition to studying more, Sorenson has also encouraged team members to take advantage of the provided tutors.

“The key with tutors, it seems, is that the students have to have the work done before they see the tutor,” Sorenson said.

Reed says Student-Athlete Services utilizes the pool of tutors at the Academic Success Center on campus. He believes somewhere around 50 percent of athletes take advantage of those tutors, and while that might seem like a good average, he says the usage of the tutors is on an individual basis and couldn’t say whether or not it was a good average.

“I don’t know if there is a direct correlation between athletes’ grades and the tutors,” Reed said.

Logan Scholl, senior in finance, believes athletes tend to take easier classes, thus accounting for the higher GPA.

“If you look at a lot of the athletes, they are taking easy classes like sociology and liberal arts,” he said.

Reed disagreed.

“We have a lot of athletes that are business majors and engineers,” he said. “I don’t agree with that opinion at all.”