ITTA BENA, Miss. (January 16, 2019) – Mississippi Valley State's Sr. Assoc. AD Compliance & Student-Athlete Affairs/Senior Woman Administrator K. Renia Edwards has been appointed as a member of the NCAA Division I Committee on Academics, as announced by the NCAA Office. Edwards' term of service begins immediately and will continue through August 31, 2022.
"I am honored and very excited for this opportunity to represent Mississippi Valley State University and the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) on the NCAA Committee on Academics," said Edwards. "I would like thank my Athletics Director, Dianthia Ford-Kee and SWAC Commissioner, Charles McClelland in supporting my nomination. I look forward to serving the membership and future student-athletes through the work of the committee."
The Division I Committee on Academics supports the primacy of the Association's academic mission through the management of Division I academics matters, including policy, eligibility standards, and the NCAA Division I Academic Performance Program (APP). The Committee on Academics is chaired by a Division I president and consists of university presidents, a provost, faculty athletics representatives, directors of athletics, senior woman administrators, conference administrators and a student-athlete. The Committee on Academics subsumes the roles served by the Committee on Academic Performance and the Academic Cabinet in former Division I structure.
Edwards came to MVSU in 2014 as the Senior Associate Athletics Director for Compliance and Student-Athlete Affairs and assumed the role of Senior Woman Administrator in 2015. She was a softball student-athlete at Shaw University, earning her undergraduate degree in business management in 1995. Edwards then went on to earn her master's in sport management from Northern Illinois in 1998.
Prior to her NCAA appointment, Edwards has served in different national leadership roles during her career. She is a 2004 graduate of the NACWAA/HERS Leadership Institute; she participated in the inaugural N4A Professional Development Institute in 2005 and was elected the first chair of the Student-Athlete Development Division on the N4A Board of Directors. Edwards has also been a NAAC Convention stipend recipient, selected to participate in the NCAA Life Skills Symposium and has served a presenter with various organizations.
