Last week, the NCAA announced that 17 schools would be receiving Division I Accelerating Academic Success Program (AASP) grants for the 2024–25 academic year. Among those is Saint Peter’s University in New Jersey, which will receive $100,000 to help boost student-athlete academic achievement.
“Saint Peter’s has been identified as a ‘limited resource institution,’” said Katie Arcuri, director of athletics. “We have to specify exactly how we’re going to spend every dollar because it needs to be academic-related.”
Established in 2012, AASP grants invest in the academic success of student-athletes. Colleges and universities have used the grant money for multiple ways, such as upgrading athletic academic tutoring centers, funding computers and other technology, and student-athlete career development.
“In past years, we’ve built an academic center for excellence, which is our study hall room,” said Arcuri of previous grants. “There are computers, a printer and a large screen where we have meetings and host things for the student-athletes. Then, we tried to think outside of the box in terms of what else we need to help our student-athletes achieve academically.”
Each grant should be spent within the academic year it is received. This is the second consecutive year for Saint Peter’s to receive an AASP grant. Last year, the grant was based around hiring a graduate assistant for student-athlete support services, who works one-on-one with the student-athletes across all sports. Olivia Christiano is retained again this year to oversee study hall, have weekly meetings and help with general academic support.
“We’re trying to be intentional about retention and keeping student-athletes here,” said Arcuri. “We start grassroots, increasing our GPA (grade point average) every year, which we’ve done. … The NCAA will come here to do a site visit and meet with…Olivia, our student-athletes, myself, the president (Dr. Hubert Benitez), our alumni advancement and grants office to see how the grant has impacted us.”
The academic center has laptops that student-athletes can sign out to do work in their dorm rooms. Last year’s grant also covered student-athlete programming, including a speaker on mental health and a financial literacy program. This year’s grant includes Christiano’s salary and ARMS software, which everyone in the athletic department, including student-athletes, use to communicate and help with academics.
“We work really hard to make sure that they are good students and we provide them with the resources to be successful,” said Arcuri.