  {"id":122051,"date":"2020-07-06T13:19:24","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T23:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=122051"},"modified":"2020-07-06T13:19:24","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T23:19:24","slug":"uh-hilo-athletics-new-gpa-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/07\/06\/uh-hilo-athletics-new-gpa-record\/","title":{"rendered":"<abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> Hilo athletics sets new <abbr title=\"Grade Point Average\">GPA<\/abbr> record"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> &lt; 1<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minute<\/span><\/span><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/hilo-athletics-helper-helper.jpg\" alt=\"vulcan student athletes\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-118333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/hilo-athletics-helper-helper.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/hilo-athletics-helper-helper-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/hilo-athletics-helper-helper-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Despite the obstacles COVID-19 created for the 2019\u201320 <a href=\"https:\/\/hilo.hawaii.edu\/\">University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Âé¶¹´«Ã½<\/span> at Hilo<\/a> student-athletes, the Vulcan teams managed to post the highest overall athletic department <abbr title=\"Grade Point Average\">GPA<\/abbr> since joining the Pacific West Conference in the late 1990s.<\/p>\n<p>All 12 Vulcan teams and more than 200 student-athletes combined for a <abbr>GPA<\/abbr> of 3.191 for the 2019&#8211;20 academic year, beating last year\u2019s average and previous best of 3.078. Additionally, 10 of the 12 <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> Hilo teams improved their <abbr>GPA<\/abbr>s from a year ago.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I cannot be more proud of our student-athletes and their academic accomplishments,&rdquo; said <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo Athletic Director <strong>Patrick Guillen<\/strong>. &ldquo;The daily schedule of going to class, practicing and competing is incredibly demanding, not to mention the time spent traveling. For them to achieve this success is nothing short of amazing.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The Vulcan women\u2019s basketball team was also named the Ramon Goya Academic Team of the Year for earning a team <abbr>GPA<\/abbr> of 3.541. Half of the Vulcan teams had a 3.3 <abbr>GPA<\/abbr> or better, including men\u2019s golf (3.427), women\u2019s cross country (3.372), women\u2019s soccer (3.368) and women\u2019s tennis (3.302).<\/p>\n<p>Individual student-athletes were also recognized as <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo Scholar Athletes. To be eligible for this award, the student-athletes must be a sophomore or higher, and have completed at least three semesters at <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo. All <abbr>GPA<\/abbr>s listed are cumulative.<\/p>\n<p>Among the student-athletes were men\u2019s golfer <strong>Evan Merrier<\/strong>, who was named the Joe and Harriet Estrella Male Scholar Athlete of the Year, and women\u2019s soccer defender <strong>Hedda Bjerklund<\/strong>, who was honored as the Sakai and Harue Wakakuwa Female Scholar Athlete of the Year.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hiloathletics.com\/news\/2020\/7\/1\/general-vulcan-teams-set-gpa-record.aspx\">See which student captured the top spot in each sport on the <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo athletics website.<\/a><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_122049\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-122049\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/hilo-athletics-merrier-bjerklund.jpg\" alt=\"evan merrier and hedda bjerklund\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-122049\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/hilo-athletics-merrier-bjerklund.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/hilo-athletics-merrier-bjerklund-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/hilo-athletics-merrier-bjerklund-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-122049\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Evan Merrier and Hedda Bjerklund<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All 12 Vulcan teams and more than 200 student-athletes combined for a <abbr>GPA<\/abbr> of 3.191 for the 2019&#8211;20 academic year, beating last year&#8217;s average and previous best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1362],"tags":[58,911,660,714,14,151],"class_list":["post-122051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","tag-athletics","tag-program-recognition","tag-student-recognition","tag-student-athlete","tag-uh-hilo","tag-hilo-athletics","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122051"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122075,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122051\/revisions\/122075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}