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BLACKSBURG – Eight Virginia Tech student-athletes encompassing four different sports recently received 2014 1A FAR Academic Excellence Awards as handed out by 1A FAR, a group of faculty athletics representatives at NCAA Division I institutions in the Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly known as Division I-A.

The group of Tech student-athletes includes women’s track athletes Courtney Dobbs, Frances Dowd and Alexandra Watt; women’s swimmers Caroline Higgins and Rachel Sepanski, softball player Dani Anderson, women’s tennis player Tea Ivanovic and men’s soccer player Nick Smirniotopoulos.

The mission of the 1A FAR is to advocate for effective interaction and academic and fiscal balance between an institution's academic mission and its intercollegiate program.

The winners are announced around this time each year at the fall meeting of 1A FAR.

The criteria of this award is as follows:

• Awarded a Bachelor’s degree in the previous year (Sept. 1, 2013-Aug. 31, 2014), with a cumulative grade-point average of 3.80 or above upon graduation.

• Participation in at least two years of intercollegiate athletics at a Football Bowl Subdivision institution in a sport sponsored by an FBS conference.

The faculty athletics representative is a designation created and mandated by the NCAA. FARs must be members of an institution's faculty and may not hold an administrative or coaching position in the athletics department. Duties vary by institution, but typically a FAR serves as a liaison to the athletics department. The 1A FAR is an advocate for the appropriate balance and effective interaction between an institution's academic mission and its intercollegiate athletics program.

All FARs who serve at NCAA Division IA institutions are members of 1A FAR.

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