INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - William Jewell College has been recognized with the Presidents' Award for Academic Excellence which awarded to Division II schools that have achieved an Academic Success Rate of 90% or higher. Jewell is one of only 43 institutions nationwide and one of five in the Great Lakes Valley Conference to receive the honor with an Academic Success Rate of 91%. This is the seventh honor for the College in 10 years as an NCAA member, and third consecutive.

The GLVC's five honorees is second among Division II conferences behind only the Northeast-10 Conference who led the division with eight athletics programs achieving scores of 90% or more. 

"It is an honor recognizing 43 schools for this prestigious award," said Steven Shirley, president of Minot State and chair of the Division II Presidents Council. "I applaud these schools and student-athletes for their hard work, commitment and dedication to achieving academic excellence." 

The Division II ASR includes transfers into a school in the calculation and removes transfers out who left school while academically eligible. The ASR also includes the more than 31,000 non-scholarship student-athletes who were enrolled in the four years covered in the most recent data.

Even when using the less-inclusive federal graduation rates, student-athletes are outperforming their peers in the general student population by 8%. For Division II athletes, the federal rate increased 1 percentage point to 60%, and the general student body increased 1 point to 52%.

The schools receiving the 2021 Presidents' Award are: