Courtesy: Big Ten Conference
ROSEMONT, Ill. – The Big Ten Conference announced Thursday that 2,132 student-athletes have earned the 2020-21 Big Ten Distinguished Scholar Award. The list includes student-athletes from all 14 member institutions, plus affiliate members Johns Hopkins and Notre Dame. Collectively, this group competed in 38 different sports this past season, including all 28 conference-sponsored sports.
The 2020-21 class of Distinguished Scholar Award recipients includes 465 student-athletes who maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA during the previous academic term. This group of honorees is pursuing diverse fields of study with a list of majors that include kinesiology, plant science, mechanical engineering, aerospace, English, Spanish, marketing and many others.
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.
A complete list of the 2020-21 Big Ten Distinguished Scholar Award recipients can be found here: 2020-21 Big Ten Distinguished Scholar Award Recipients (PDF).