NATCHITOCHES -- Northwestern State director of athletics Greg Burke, the state's longest-tenured AD nearing the start of his 17th year with the Demons, has been named to the NCAA Division I Committee on Academic Performance.
 
Burke will join athletic administrators from around the nation in assessing how the NCAA can best serve the academic needs of student-athletes to maximize their collegiate experiences. His term begins Sept. 1.
 
Academic excellence has been a cornerstone of Northwestern State athletics in Burke's tenure. NSU is one of a select few Division I institutions in the region never to have drawn a penalty for low performance in the NCAA's Academic Performance Rate annual study, and has also excelled in yearly NCAA Graduation Success Rate results.
 
Nearly three-quarters of the student-athletes at Northwestern earn their undergraduate degrees. A contributing factor in that success rate is an academic support program which Burke helped shape early in his term as AD.
 
It's the latest in a series of NCAA committee assignments for Burke, who recently was a member of the NCAA Championships/Sports Management Cabinet. He previously served a four-year term on the NCAA Division I Football Issues Committee and concurrently spent a term on the eight-member NCAA FCS Committee administering the Division I playoffs.
 
Earlier this year, he was presented the "Outstanding Contributor to Amateur Football Award" from the McNaughton Chapter, encompassing North Louisiana, of the National Football Foundation.