RADFORD -- Black Belt magazine has bestowed its 2008 Industry Award for Best Seminar/Training Camp to Karate College, a summer program hosted by RU and led by RU exercise, sport and health education professor Jerry Beasley since 1987.

Karate College is co-sponsored by the RU Karate Club, which is currently celebrating its 35th year. “We are very proud,” says Beasley. “This is quite an honor.” Black Belt, he says, is “the acknowledged leader in the martial arts field.”

Earlier this year, Black Belt featured the 20th anniversary of Karate College in an article by Jason McNeil, who called the martial arts camp “one of the world's greatest assemblages of black belts, each and every one eager to teach and train all comers.”

Beasley, a member of Black Belt's Hall of Fame, founded and coordinates RU's multiculturally focused martial arts program in the Department of Exercise, Sport and Health Education. It is the only accredited university program in the U.S. that offers a bachelor's degree with a martial arts emphasis.