Wheaton, Ill.- Wheaton College graduate student Mark Hiben has been named to the Capital One Academic All-District 7 Men's Cross Country/Track & Field Team for 2016. As a First Team Academic All-District selection, Hiben has advanced to the national Division III Academic All-America ballot. The Division III Capital One Academic All-America Men's Cross Country/Track & Field Team will be announced on June 22.

This is Hiben's second career Academic All-District selection and his first as a Track & Field student-athlete. He was named to the Academic All-District 7 Football team at wide receiver in 2012. He is currently pursuing his Master's Degree in Teaching-Secondary Certififcation with a 4.0 cumulative grade point average (G.P.A.) and earned his undergraduate degree in Biology from Wheaton in May of 2015 with a 3.57 cumulative G.P.A. A standout for the Thunder men's track & field team the past two years, Hiben is competing at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships with Wheaton's men's 4X400-meter relay team for the second consecutive year. He earned All-American recognition this winter as a member of the 4X400-meter relay team that placed in the top-eight at the NCAA Division III Indoor Track & Field Championships. On February 13, 2016 he established a new school record in the men's indoor 400-meter dash with a time of  49.58-seconds at the Chicagoland Indoor T&F Championships, a record that was broken later in the indoor season by teammate Nils Eastburg.

The Academic All-District Team is a part of the CoSIDA All-America program that honors student-athletes annually who have succeeded at the highest level in athletics and in the classroom. Members of the eight First Team Academic All-District squads in each Division advance to the national ballot, where they have the opportunity to be selected for the Academic All-America Team. Individuals are selected through voting by CoSIDA; a 2,000-plus member organization consisted of sports public relations professionals for colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.
 
Hiben is the 14th Wheaton student-athlete to earn Academic All-District 7 recognition this year, joining: Reed Bartley (men's soccer); Michael Berg (men's basketball); Elliot Borge (men's soccer); Julie Buursma (women's tennis/at-large); Hannah Considine (women's basketball); Sarah Frey (women's soccer); Stephen Golz (men's soccer); Alyssa Leonard (softball); Katie McDaniels (women's basketball); Kyle Mellinger (baseball); Kirsten Nitz (women's swimming/at-large); Matt Snebold (football) and Katie Thornton (softball).

To be eligible, a student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative G.P.A. of 3.30 on a scale of 4.00, have reached sophomore athletic and academic standing at his/her current institution. Since the program's inception in 1952, CoSIDA has bestowed Academic All-America honors on more than 14,000 student-athletes in Division I, II, III, NAIA and junior colleges covering all NCAA championship sports.