W&J’s Dunlap selected as PAC's NCAA Woman of the Year nominee
Valerie and father Jim at this year's PAC Scholar-Athlete of the Year Banquet

W&J’s Dunlap selected as PAC's NCAA Woman of the Year nominee

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INDIANAPOLIS (pacathletics.org) – Former Washington & Jefferson College women's basketball standout Valerie Dunlap (Hostetter, Pa. / Latrobe) has been named the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) nominee for this year's National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Woman of the Year Award.

A record 147 NCAA college athletes have been named 2015 Woman of the Year honorees by conferences and independent schools. These honorees, selected from a record 480 school nominees, represent college athletes from 18 different sports spanning all three NCAA divisions. Of those recognized, 57 honorees competed in Division I, 39 competed in Division II and 51 competed in Division III.

"The NCAA’s Woman of the Year program annually honors the 'Best of the Best' in college athletics, and Valerie (Dunlap) certainly qualifies," said PAC commissioner Joe Onderko. "Her athletic successes as a women’s basketball player, coupled with her outstanding academic accomplishments and her extensive resume of campus leadership and community service activities, make her an ideal choice to represent the Presidents' Athletic Conference in this prestigious national award program."

The Woman of the Year selection committee will next select the top 10 honorees in each division. These top 30 honorees will be announced in early September. The selection committee will then choose and announce the top nine finalists (three from each division) at the end of September. The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics (CWA) will vote from amongst those nine finalists to determine the 2015 Woman of the Year.

The top 30 honorees will be recognized and the 2015 NCAA Woman of the Year will be named at the annual ceremony in Indianapolis on October 18.

Now in its 25th year, the NCAA Woman of the Year award recognizes graduating female student-athletes for excellence in academics, athletics, community service and leadership.

Dunlap was recently selected as one of 13 national recipients for the NCAA Women's Enhancement Program Postgraduate Scholarship for Careers in Athletics. She is using the $7,500 scholarship at Ohio University as a student in its Professional Master of Sports Administration program. SportBusiness International recently ranked the OU MSA program the top-ranked American Postgraduate Sports Course.

The Women's Enhancement Postgraduate Scholarship for Careers in Athletics program was developed by the NCAA CWA and the NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee. The goal of the enhancement program is to increase the pool of and opportunities for qualified minority and female candidates in intercollegiate athletics through postgraduate scholarships.

Named the first Capital One Academic All-America® in W&J women's basketball history in February, Dunlap graduated with a 3.925 grade-point average (GPA) as a double major in economics and German. She is one of 46 W&J student-athletes to receive Academic All-America® honors since 1977.

On campus, she was active with Omicron Delta Epsilon, the international honorary for economics, Pi Gamma Mu, the international honorary in social sciences, Delta Phi Alpha, the national German honorary and Alpha Lambda Delta, a freshman honorary. During her time at W&J she served in various roles within the College’s Office of Residence Life and worked as a German language peer-assisted learning tutor. She participated in W&J’s Get Involved in the Volunteer Experience (G.I.V.E.) Club and was as a team member on W&J’s Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute Global Investment Research Challenge team.

She was lauded as an Alpha Scholar at W&J, which recognizes students with a GPA of 3.85 or higher, was a member of the Dean's List in each semester and was a PAC Academic Honor Roll selection four times.

Dunlap also participated in an internship with the PAC during the Spring 2014 semester.

Through W&J's Magellan Project, Dunlap spent last summer in Germany as a finance intern at Kennametal, Inc., which is headquartered in her hometown of Latrobe, Pa.  A proprietary offering for W&J students, the College's Magellan Project, established in 2008, provides scholarship funding for students to spend the summer months pursuing independent projects and internships that extend liberal arts learning outside the classroom.

"We are very proud of Valerie. The impact she made on this campus isn’t limited to the basketball court. She made a difference in the residence halls, honorary societies and volunteer groups. Valerie’s four years at W&J should be the blueprint for what can be accomplished as a NCAA Division III student-athlete," said W&J director of athletics Scott McGuinness.

The 6-foot-3 center averaged 11.8 points, 10.9 rebounds and 2.9 blocks during her final collegiate season and wrapped up her career as the school's all-time leader in blocked shots leader with 228 (12th among active Division III players). Dunlap also ranks second among W&J career leaders in rebounds (951), fourth in games played (112) and eighth in scoring (1,190). Her 315 rebounds as a senior finished just three behind the single-season record, set by W&J Hall of Famer Heather Dawkins '94 during the 1993-94 season. Dunlap also posted a W&J single-season record 83 blocked shots during the 2012-13 and 2014-15 seasons.