Minnesota Recognized with 79 Big Ten Distinguished Scholar Honors

Athletics | 7/14/2022 10:00:00 AM

MINNEAPOLIS – The Big Ten Conference announced its 2021-22 Big Ten Distinguished Scholar Award recipients Thursday with 79 University of Minnesota student-athletes earning recognition from the league.

Eighteen Minnesota programs are represented on this year’s Big Ten Distinguished Scholar list with 19 Golden Gopher student-athletes maintaining perfect 4.0 grade point averages during the 2021-22 academic year (Laura Bagwell Katalinich, Hannah Constable, Natalie DenHartog, Ava Hill, Owen Hoeft, Phillip Howard, Tess Keyzers, Sydney Kretlow, Val Larson, Ona Loper, Annie Moen, Maggie Nicholson, Conner Olson, Zeyneb Sarioglan, Colin Schmidt, Kaleb Siekmeier, Calvin Swenson, Audrey Wethington and Madeline Wethington).

Big Ten Faculty Representatives established the Distinguished Scholar Award in 2008 to supplement the Academic All-Big Ten program. Distinguished Scholar Award recipients must have earned Academic All-Big Ten recognition in the previous academic year, must have been enrolled full time at the institution for the entire previous academic year (two semesters or three quarters) and earned a minimum GPA of 3.70 or better during the previous academic year, excluding any summer grades.

The Academic All-Big Ten threshold is a cumulative GPA of 3.00 or higher for a student-athlete’s academic career.

Thursday’s announcement is the latest academic achievement for the University of Minnesota in 2021-22. 

As a department, the ‘U’ tied for its second-most Academic All-Americans in school history with 11. Among the sports that are sponsored by Minnesota, the Golden Gophers led the Big Ten in both Academic All-Americans and Academic All-District honorees (25).

Additionally, Maroon & Gold student-athletes earned a total of 331 Academic All-Big Ten accolades for the 2021-22 academic year. In the fall, 130 student-athletes were recognized, while the winter saw 102 earn Big Ten accolades and another 99 received such honors in the spring.

Seven Gopher programs earned a perfect 1,000 multiyear rate in the latest Academic Progress Rate, which collects data from four academic years, while 14 programs earned a perfect APR score in the most recent reporting year, 2020-21.