Academic Excellence

Friday, April 26, 2019 | By: WIU Athletic Communications

Ana Bjelica adds yet another award to her resume.

Academic Excellence, one of the four core values At Western Illinois University.

Every day students are encouraged by faculty to strive for that value and exemplify it. For one student-athlete, she has already achieved it and its just the beginning.

That Leatherneck is Ana Bjelica.

A member of the women's tennis team, she was named an ITA Scholar-Athlete last year and helped her team record the highest term grade point average (3.816) in the Western Illinois Athletic Department.

This semester, Bjelica was selected unanimously by the Department of Chemistry for the Chairman's Award Scholarship. Each year the department recognizes an outstanding student in a freshman chemistry class for his/her achievements throughout the academic year by bestowing the Chairman's Award.

"I am excited to receive this award because I put in a lot of work this past year to learn chemistry," Ana said. "It really challenged me."

Ana's constant motivation to excel academically is because of the Purple and Gold.

"I want to always do the very best I can in the classroom because just having the opportunity to study here," Ana said. "Especially as a student-athlete, is a great privilege to be thankful for."

Ana won the award as the top chemistry major in CHEM201/202 and her research mentor Dr. John Determan was impressed.

"She has set a very high standard, being one of the top general chemistry students in my courses in the five years I have been at WIU," Determan said. "She has done far more than expected to just earn an A. Ana knows the materials far superior to what is needed to pass an exam or even what would be needed to obtain an A. She brings a great passion to the classroom and research environments."

The research she conducted that earned her the award was methods to properly model main group element containing molecules, which might not sound exciting, but Ana suggests that is.

"Research is amazing because you can always learn something new and apply it in new ways," Ana said. "It can be tedious, but also a lot of fun."

She also had a unique opportunity to conduct research along with her teammate and sister, Mary Bjelica.

Determan mentions what Ana classifies is fun, has turned into a lifelong achievement for the Montenegro native.

"While this research can be very challenging for undergraduate students in general, let alone for freshman level students," Determan said. "Ana contributed to what I expect to be a very nice journal article publication. This is quite exceptional for any freshman level student, as a publication at any level of undergrad is above and beyond the normal expectations."

As if the awards and honors seemed to stop finally, Ana had one more to add to her resume.

She received a grant for her project entitled "Screening of Microorganisms Isolated from Corn Field that are Capable of Producing Value-Added 10-Hydroxystearic Acid from Oleic Acid". Last week Ana and her two other research partners presented their findings at WIU Undergraduate Research Day.

While many students first choice isn't to be biochemistry major in college, for Ana it was a simple choice that will help her down the road.

"Biochemistry really interests me because it's a fascinating and applicable topic that you can never learn enough about," Ana said. "My goal is to apply what I learn to hopefully work in the medical field someday."

Outside the lab, Ana has been just as dominant.

In her inaugural season of collegiate tennis, she posted a 12-3 record in singles play and finished 3-1 in Summit League play. Her play helped the program clinch a berth to the 2018 Summit League Tournament for the first time since 2010.

Ana will be honored formally on April 25 and have her named engraved on a plaque, which will be displayed in a case outside the department office.

So if you're ever in Currens Hall and want to know what Academic Excellence is, be sure to see if Ana Bjelica is around.

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