UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa – Penn State senior student-athletes Jade Rowland (women's fencing) and Mason Nadeau (baseball) have been awarded 2020 Big Ten Postgraduate Scholarships.
Rowland and Nadeau were each awarded a $7,500 postgraduate scholarship by the Big Ten Conference.
Nadeau, an outfielder from Lansdale, Pennsylvania, appeared in 108 games for the Nittany Lions, starting 77. In those contests, he batted .251, slugged five home runs, drove in 39 runs and stole 21 bases. Nadeau garnered Academic All-Big Ten and Big Ten Distinguished Scholar honors and was named to Penn State's All-Academic Team this season as the baseball student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade point average.
Nadeau is beginning a year-long Aldi district manager training program and plans on pursuing an MBA. He completed his degree in supply chain and information systems with a 3.65 cumulative GPA. Outside the classroom and playing field, Nadeau was a member of the Penn State Athletic Director's Leadership Institute and Student-Athlete Advisory Board (SAAB).
Rowland recently completed an outstanding career with the Penn State women's fencing team. The New Jersey-native was a four-year starter in the women's foil for head coach Wes Glon. Rowland amassed a 180-127 career mark for Penn State. She posted a career best 55 wins as a freshman in 2016-17 and qualified for the NCAA Championships, placing 12th. Rowland had 39 or more wins in each of her four seasons with Penn State. An outstanding student, Rowland was a three-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree. A finance and history major, Rowland's post-graduate plans include attending the London School of Economics in England.
Penn State Among the Nation's Most Comprehensive and Successful Athletic Programs
Under the leadership of Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Sandy Barbour, Penn State has one of the nation's most comprehensive and successful athletic programs, featuring 800 student-athletes across 31 varsity programs (16 men's, 15 women's). The Nittany Lions' 31 programs are tied for the fourth-highest number of sports sponsored by a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) institution.
Penn State student-athletes have led the athletic department to 34 Big Ten championships and nine NCAA National Championships since October 2013. The Nittany Lions have finished in the top 15 of the Learfield IMG College Director's Cup 19 times in the last 26 years (the Director's Cup was not awarded in 2019-20).
Record-Breaking NCAA Graduation Success Rate
The 2019 NCAA's annual graduation rates study of institutions across the nation revealed Penn State student-athletes at the University Park campus earned a Graduation Success Rate (GSR) of 91 percent to break the school's all-time record of 90, which was previously set in the 2010, 2017 and 2018 NCAA reports. Nittany Lion students posted a 91 percent graduation rate compared to the 88 percent average for all Division I institutions for students entering from 2009-10 through the 2012-13 academic year.
Penn State student-athletes have delivered a Graduation Success Rate in the 88-91 percent range during each of the past 13 NCAA reports, improving from 88 percent in the 2015 report, to 89 percent in 2016, to 90 percent in 2017 and 2018, and a record-breaking 91 percent figure in 2019. Ten Nittany Lion programs earned 100% graduation rates and 18 programs were above the national average.
