Chun named Division I AD of the Year
NACDA, Under Armour select Raiders VP for national honor
Colgate Vice President and Director of Athletics Victoria M. Chun ’91, MA’94 has been named Division I FCS Under Armour Athletics Director of the Year.
This week’s announcement by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics places Chun in an elite group among her peers. The award highlights of Chun and athletics directors at all levels for their commitment and positive contributions to student-athletes, campuses and their surrounding communities.
Under Chun’s leadership, Colgate Athletics has experienced unprecedented success – and this year is no different. During the 2017-18 academic season, Colgate already has captured its second conference football title in the last three years and its second straight men’s soccer crown, with the soccer team advancing to the NCAA Sweet 16 for the first time in program history.
Colgate women’s hockey has played its way to a program-record 32 victories and debut appearance in the NCAA tournament. The Raiders host Northeastern in an NCAA quarterfinal matchup this weekend at one of the showplaces of college hockey, the Class of 1965 Arena, built under Chun’s watch in 2015-16.
Men’s basketball is playing for a Patriot League title Wednesday night at Bucknell after also setting a program record with 19 wins. Thirteen of those victories came at home, tying the Colgate record set 91 years ago.
All 25 Sports Have Flourished
Chun’s nearly six-year tenure as Colgate director of athletics has produced three titles in football, two in men’s soccer and single championships thus far in men’s lacrosse, men’s rowing, women’s soccer and volleyball. All 25 varsity sports have shattered records under Chun’s leadership.
The academic accomplishments by Colgate student-athletes under Chun also have been stellar. Their 98 percent graduation rate ranks Colgate No. 2 in the nation alongside peer schools Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Davidson, Notre Dame, Princeton, Stanford and Yale. The most recent APR report had 22 out of 24 NCAA-sponsored teams scoring a perfect score of 1,000.
The fall 2016 semester saw 331 Colgate student-athletes – or 55 percent – earn a 3.25 GPA or higher for the term, with 24 student-athletes earning perfect 4.0 GPAs. And 293 — or 48 percent — made the dean’s list with a GPA of 3.3 or better. All of these milestones are all-time highs for Colgate student-athletes.
For this year’s NACDA Under Armour award, Chun joins Thomas Beckett of Yale, Bill Smith of Bryant and Ingrid Wicker McCree of North Carolina Central as honorees on the Division I FCS level. It was announced last month that Chun is succeeding Beckett as Yale’s director of athletics July 1.
This year’s honorees receive their awards June 29 during the James J. Corbett Awards Luncheon, part of NACDA’s 53rd Annual Convention.