BATON ROUGE — For the second-straight year, the National Consortium for Academics and Sports awarded LSU the Degree Completion Program Honor Roll Award at its National Conference in Orlando, Fla.
The National Consortium of Academics and Sports is an ever-growing organization of colleges and universities, which provide opportunities for current and former student-athletes to continue their pursuit of higher education, while working within the community addressing social issues. THE NCAS and its members have proven to be effective advocates of the balance between academics and athletics.
The CHAMPS/Life Skills program at LSU helped reach over 5,000 local youth in the Baton Rouge community over the past year. The Tigers made visits to local schools, hospitals and retirement homes. In addition, the student-athletes were involved in the annual Halloween BOOzar, the Thanksgiving food drive and the Christmas Toy Drive among other activities.
As part of the Degree Completion Program, current and former student-athletes are allowed to complete their education in exchange for community service. Nationally, the National Consortium for Academics and Sports touched over 13 million children last year and has logged over 14.2 million hours in the community since it began 19 years ago.
In the past 19 years, 21,798 students have returned to school to complete their degrees. In exchange for tuition, returning former student-athletes participate in the school’s community service and outreach program, where they meet with youth to talk about a variety of critical issues for a minimum of ten hours per week.
There are 220 institutions that make up the Consortium. It has successfully raised over $278 million in tuition for student-athletes. In addition to the Sports Outreach and Community Service Program and the Degree Completion Program, NCAS sponsors the Mentors in Violence Prevention Program, the Teamwork Leadership Institute, Project TEAMWORK and National STUDENT-Athlete Day, all to encourage and recognize achievements by student-athletes both in the classroom and in the community.