Academic Progress

The annual Academic Progress Rate report has been issued by the NCAA. From a Dartmouth release:

This year 22 of Dartmouth College’s varsity teams received public recognition from the NCAA for having Academic Progress Rate scores among the top 10 percent nationally in their respective sport.

The Big Green stand second nationally in number of teams honored by the NCAA for the fourth year in a row.

From the NCAA release:

For the fourth consecutive year, Yale University had the most teams (24) recognized, followed by Dartmouth College (22) and the University of Pennsylvania (20). By conference, the Ivy Group had the most number of teams honored (135), followed by the Patriot League (90) and the Big East Conference (70).

Well-deserved kudos to Dartmouth and the Ivy League for running broad-based athletic programs and doing it the right way. That being said, there probably needs to be a huge asterisk regarding the Ivy League holding down eight of the top 20 spots.

With 24, 22 and 20, the top three Ivy League schools on the list have more teams recognized than a great many – and probably most – other schools even field.

I couldn't find a link on the NCAA.org with the number of varsity teams fielded per school so I went to a representative cross-section of school websites and counted the sports they listed. In no particular order, here's what I found:

Butler 15
Gonzaga 16
Colorado State 13
NC State 22
UNH 18
Central Michigan 14
Quinnipiac 18
Houston 14
Montana 14
Seton Hall 16
Providence 17
Penn State 27

So while the Ivies are doing just fine thank you, using the raw number of recognized teams really is a little misleading. Better would be the percentage of a school's teams that are above the threshold.

But I digress. To find Dartmouth's team-by-team listing and the top-10 schools in terms of the raw number of teams recognized, check out another Dartmouth release. To search by sport, conference, school or some combination of the three, click here.

The Ivy League champion Dartmouth baseball team has scheduled a couple of games to stay sharp looking ahead to the NCAAs. Local fans can get a bonus look at the Big Green Friday when it entertains Division III Castleton State from western Vermont at 3 p.m. (The Spartans have made the Division III NCAAs.) Dartmouth will travel to Boston College Sunday for a 12:30 p.m. game.

The second annual 5K Cully's Run to benefit The National Eating Disorders Association will be held May 23 starting at the Corey Ford Rugby Clubhouse. Find more information here.

I had to laugh reading a Daily Dartmouth story yesterday about a talk given by Jay Parini. I wish I'd known he was going to be on campus because I recently read and enjoyed his book Robert Frost: A Life. Anyway, what made me laugh was how the lede to the story and the photo caption referred to Parini as, "Former Dartmouth professor." Absolutely true. He taught at Dartmouth from 1975-82. But he's been a well-known professor at Middlebury ever since then and that is never mentioned.

One of the neat things about living in a college community is having the chance to hear speakers like Parini. Today at 4:30 BBC Foreign Correspondent James Reynolds will be at 3 Rockefeller Hall giving a talk entitled, "Stuff Them Or Shoot Them - The Future Of The Foreign Correspondent." As someone who was taught some of the ins and outs of being a foreign correspondent while studying journalism in grad school – where did I go wrong? – I'm intrigued. I'll have to choose between that and optional batting practice for my Little League team ;-)