Kansas University’s football team has overachieved on the field this season. And in the classroom, too.

Members of the Kansas University Athletic Corp. board learned at their regular meeting Friday afternoon that the KU football team compiled a 2.5 grade point average during the spring semester.

“That’s up from 1.9 to 2.2 historically,” noted board member Don Steeples, a university vice provost.

Overall, according to a report from Paul Buskirk, associate athletic director for support services, KU student-athletes compiled a GPA of 2.87. Women’s swimming led the way with a 3.35 average.

Also noted was the fact 68 percent of the 1996-97 freshman student-athletes had completed degrees.

One area of concern, however, was that minority male athletes — particularly football players — had much lower graduation rates than other student-athletes.

Taken under consideration by the KUAC board was an academic committee recommendation to explore the feasibility of adding a second football counselor to the support services staff.

Members of the board’s finance committee arrived late because they were meeting with the auditing firm that went over the budget.

Mike Maddox, a Lawrence banker and the board member who heads the finance committee, mentioned a couple of minor issues came up in connection with the $27.2 million budget, but stressed, “We had a clean audit. We had a clean bill of health.”

In another money issue, Jay Hinrichs, head of the Williams Fund, reported donations were up $700,000 from this time a year ago and the Fund now had 4,300 members, or about 500 more than last year.

“Some of it is directly related to the success of the football program,” Hinrichs said about the growth. “And a number of people have raised their donations based on basketball tickets.”

Hinrichs was referring, in part, to the athletic department’s redistribution of seats to a hundred or so men’s basketball ticket holders who had fallen behind in their contributions.

Under new business, alumni board member Reid Holbrook, a Kansas City, Kan., attorney, proposed the KUAC by-laws, last amended in 1975, be reviewed.

“The creature that exists today,” Holbrook said, “is a different creature than the one that existed in 1975. We need to make sure they’re consistent with our tax-exempt status.”

Athletic director Lew Perkins seconded the motion and board chair Tom Mulinazzi appointed an ad hoc committee to study the by-laws and make a report at the next meeting, Jan. 23.