Here is the Phoenix story:
In an exclusive interview with the Loyola Phoenix, Dr. Robert Kelly, Loyola University Chicago’s Vice President for Student Development, announced that Dr. Grace Calhoun is to become the school’s new athletic director.
Calhoun, who currently serves as the associate athletic director at Indiana University, was selected from a pool of over 80 candidates identified by a Loyola committee of administrators and high-profile search firm Parker Executive Search. Parker Executive has a reputation for hiring for higher education and college athletics, from Ads for Notre Dame, LSU, Ohio State, Georgia, Iowa and Washington, as well as head coaches for dozens of programs.
The hiring process began in late 2010 with the Oct. 13 announcement by Kelly saying that then-athletic director John Planek would be relieved of his duties after nearly 11 years in the position. After the committees whittled the potential candidates down to 10 – within which were sitting ADs and senior associate directors from other Jesuit schools as well as in the ACC and Big 10 – all ten were separately interviewed on Jan. 27 and 28.
From there, the list was again shortened to three candidates for on-campus interviews from Feb. 1 through 3, where candidates braved both blizzard conditions and meetings with Loyola academic administrators, university administrators and students, including LUC President Rev. Michael J. Garanzini, S.J., head coaches and student-athletes. The decision was then made to offer the job to Calhoun.
“[Calhoun] is a very smart person, a person of integrity and a person of really high ethical standards,” said Kelly, who also added that her record of caring for “the student-athlete” was noteworthy.
Kelly believes that this hire may be a big step toward furthering the reputation of Loyola as an athletic institution as well as academic.
“[Student-athletes] might come here to play a certain sport, but they are going to graduate here,” Kelly said. “It was important that the new athletic director be a maker of men and women.”
Kelly, who was the head of Loyola’s search committee, said that the ability to raise alumni and student excitement about the athletic program was central to the focus of the search.
“Initially we were looking for someone who would hit the ground running in regards to friendraising and fundraising,” Kelly said, who was the head of Loyola’s search committee. “When we benchmark our athletic program against those of other Jesuit universities, one of the glaring differences is the amount of fundraising and friendraising that goes on here at Loyola for the athletic program.”
“Then we realized we have to create a product that people want to be friends with or want to provide significant funds for, so it became critically important for us that the person who comes in here [knows] how to generate excitement and opportunities for not only our student-athletes but for the general student,” Kelly said.
After the interviews, Calhoun came out on top over representatives from schools including the University of Connecticut, Maryland, Saint Louis University and Marquette.
The soon-to-be-former-Hoosier has served in a number of capacities at Indiana University aside from her six years as its associate athletic director, including the director of IU’s “Excellence Academy,” Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education and the senior women’s administrator. She was also the associate director of the Patriot League athletic conference (including universities such as American, Holy Cross, Army, Navy, Fordham and Georgetown) before holding the same position at Dartmouth from 1998 to 2002.
One of the members of the Loyola community who met with Calhoun in her visit to Loyola, Dean of Students Jane Neufeld, came away impressed.
“I think she definitely is a high energy person who has a lot of great experience to bring to the position,” Neufeld said. “This is a good time for her to be joining us with a lot of exciting things going on, I think she’s going to do a great job.”
Kelly said that Calhoun should be in attendance for the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Loyola’s new Norville Intercollegiate Athletic Center on March 3, and may even begin her tenure as athletic director as soon as April 1.
Kelly hopes that the new facilities and new leadership will raise the profile of Loyola athletics.
“No other higher institution has captured Chicago yet,” he said. “Our new athletic director’s mission is to do that.”
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