NORFOLK, Va., June 4, 2018—The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) has announced that Morgan State University’s Aiyana Ware and Demetrius Weaver of Bethune-Cookman University are the 2018 recipients of the Nike Post-Graduate Scholarship.
“I would like to thank Nike for being the corporate partner for this award, and I am appreciative of our long-standing relationship with them,” Commissioner Dr. Dennis Thomas said. “In addition, I would like to congratulate the individuals who achieved this honor through their academic and athletic excellence, and I wish them well in their future endeavors.”
Ware was a track & field student-athlete for Morgan State, while Weaver played on the Wildcats football team. Weaver graduated this past December with a degree in criminal justice, recording a 3.26 GPA, while Ware had a GPA of 3.21 and graduated this past May with a degree in sociology.
Ware has been accepted into the highly competitive Urban Teacher Program at Johns Hopkins University. The program prepares students to receive a Masters of Science in Education with a certification in special education. It is a program that prepares students to be the best teachers they can be in inner-city schools in Baltimore. The program is intense, with four to six years of commitment. Upon completion of the program, Ware will receive a certification in elementary education and will complete her residency requirement with Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS).
Weaver has enrolled in the Criminal Justice Administration Master’s Program at Bethune-Cookman. The 33-credit hour program focuses on legal issues and laws within the criminal justice system and has two different tracks; one curriculum is capstone-based, while the other is thesis-based. Weaver is currently enrolled in the capstone-based curriculum, capitalizing on his educational strengths and interests. Weaver plans to become an FBI agent, specializing in homeless and abused children and human trafficking.
Since 2000, the MEAC has awarded two post-graduate scholarships in the amount of $5,000 to a deserving male and female student-athlete for their outstanding academic and athletic performance. In order to receive the scholarship, a student-athlete must be in his or her final season of intercollegiate athletics eligibility and competition under MEAC and NCAA regulations for the sport in which he or she was nominated.
Additional criteria include a minimum grade-point average of 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale), having performed with distinction as a member of the varsity team in the sport in which he or she has been nominated, the intention to enroll in a graduate degree program at an academically-accredited graduate or professional school, and having been an outstanding citizen as a student-athlete and excellent role model for the institution.
Nike, a longtime corporate partner with the MEAC, entered into a multi-year agreement with the conference in September 2016 to become the official apparel, accessory and equipment provider for the conference until 2020. The MEAC currently has a conference-wide footwear agreement with Nike, and the apparel, accessory and equipment agreement encompasses 10 of the conference’s institutions.
The MEAC’s Nike Post-Graduate Scholarships are also part of that agreement.
About the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) begins its 48th year of intercollegiate competition heading into the 2017-18 academic school year. Located in Norfolk, Va., the MEAC is made up of 13 outstanding historically black institutions across the Atlantic coastline: Bethune-Cookman University, Coppin State University, Delaware State University, Florida A&M University, Hampton University, Howard University, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Morgan State University, Norfolk State University, North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina Central University, Savannah State University and South Carolina State University.