Northeastern University athletic director Peter Roby delivered his annual address to the Faculty Senate on Wednesday praising the university’s student-athletes for their achievements both on the playing field and in the classroom.

Roby noted that the 2014-15 academic year was one of the athletic department’s most successful in the past decade. He pointed in particular to the four conference titles, four student-athletes earning All-America status, and the continued excellence in the classroom. Collectively, student-athletes have now recorded an average GPA of 3.0 or higher for 15 consecutive semesters, Roby said.

“More so than maybe ever before,” Roby commented, “we are making sure we emphasize to our student-athletes the need to develop their critical thinking skills so they are focused on their goals both athletically and academically.”

The men’s basketball team’s NCAA tournament appearance, the program’s first in 24 years, served as one of last year’s major highlights, Roby said. Though the Huskies lost a close game to Notre Dame, last year’s Atlantic Coast Conference champion, he noted how the team’s appearance rallied the entire Northeastern community.

“Everything that we hoped (the NCAA tournament appearance) would do for our community, it actually did,” Roby said. “And we hope we can experience that again very soon.”

Roby spoke highly of the women’s hockey team, which is ranked No.8 in the country and boasts some of the best female hockey players in the world. Senior captain Kendall Coyne, who was a member of the U.S. national team in the 2014 Winter Olympics, currently leads the nation in scoring, amassing 24 points in just nine games.

Roby also touched on Northeastern’s club sports, participation for which has spiked from 939 students in 2008-09 to 1,586 in 2014-15. By the end of this year, he said, Northeastern will count 50 club sports teams among its extracurricular offerings.

Also at Wednesday’s meeting, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs James C. Bean reported on the state of the university. He presented information on everything from acceptance rates and undergraduate education to research and infrastructure improvements across campus.

“There is a lot of work for us all to do moving forward,” Bean told the Senate, “but you should be very proud of what you have accomplished here in the past 10 years.”