Junior Seijen Takamura was a recipient of a prestigious Top-Five Award at the 19th Annual Scholar-Athlete Awards Ceremony on Feb. 4, at the McNamara Alumni Center’s Memorial Hall. The Golden Gopher men’s cross country team also received one of the four Outstanding Academic Team Awards given out that evening.

The Top-Five Award recognizes the top cumulative grade point averages for both men and women among the 25 Golden Gopher teams. Takamura is majoring in strategic communication and French studies. He was also recently honored at the American Advertising Federation’s Most Promising Minority Student Award Conference in New York City.

Takamura was joined by eight teammates on last fall’s Academic All-Big Ten Team: Matt Barrett, Rick Furseth, Justin Grunewald, Ben Kampf, David Krueger, Mike McFarland, Ben Puhl and Mike Torchia.

Minnesota enjoyed one of its finest seasons in school history in 2007, finishing eighth at the NCAA Championships and having Chris Rombough, Hassan Mead and Forrest Tahdooahnippah collect All-America honors.