Celebrating Women In Sport With Yale’s Vicky Chun
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Athletics Director Vicky Chun celebrates five-year anniversary, looks ahead
Vicky Chun is the first female, Asian American athletics director at Yale. Chun has led the Bulldogs to dozens of championships and school records. She has overseen approximately $150 million in upgrades and building construction for the Athletic Department. Chun believes in tradition, but also pushes back against Yale’s traditional focus on male sports. The News spoke to upperclassmen on the women’s volleyball team about Chun’s approach to men and women’s sports. She said she has received glowing feedback from athletes and staff alike. She hopes to do more in her short time to come to come up with more goals for the upcoming years, such as improving the cleanliness of the Athletics Department. She also hopes to continue pushing staff to keep getting better at their job. She says she wants Yale to be the “first of everything” for student-athletes, and that Yale is “the first of everything.” The News will feature Chun in a special special edition of The News this week at 10 p.m. ET.
Yale Athletics
This fall, Yale Athletics Director Vicky Chun celebrated her fifth year anniversary in her position.
Vicky Chun, who has over 10 years of experience directing NCAA Division I athletic programs, is the first female, Asian American athletics director at Yale. During her tenure, Chun has maintained Yale’s reputation as a top school for athletics and has led the Bulldogs to dozens of championships and school records.
She has also initiated social justice policies and programs, and she has expanded Yale’s approach to diversity, equity and inclusion to ensure that student-athletes have a say in University decision-making.
Before her time at Yale, Chun was the assistant volleyball coach at Colgate University, her alma mater, where she also played college volleyball. She then transitioned to be the assistant volleyball coach at Cornell University, before returning to Colgate as head volleyball coach. Her ascent at Colgate continued when she became its athletics director in 2012.
“While I was coaching, I really enjoyed working with student athletes,” Chun said. “And when you’re coaching volleyball, you’ve got 15. I really wanted the opportunity to work with more, [including] men and women. So I took a chance and took an internship at the NCAA and absolutely loved it. Then I stayed in athletic administration throughout.”
As the athletics director of Yale University, Vicky Chun has had the responsibility of overseeing the entirety of the Athletic Department while constantly looking for ways to expand and renovate the athletic facilities. In the past five years alone, she has overseen approximately $150 million in upgrades and building construction for the Athletic Department. Instead of allowing COVID-19 to become a setback, Chun used the time to prepare and upgrade facilities for the return to collegiate athletic competition.
Although Chun has worked to improve an evolving Athletic Department, she has also aimed to preserve Yale’s rich traditions throughout her tenure.
When asked to describe Yale athletics in three words, Chun said “excellence,” “tradition” and “dedication.”
“When I came to Yale, I realized very quickly [that] Yale was the first of everything,” Chun said. “First live mascot, the first varsity race for rowing — there are just so many firsts that it’s really important that our student athletes understand what they represent. They represent over 150 years of other student athletes.”
As the first female, Asian American athletics director following a long line of white, male athletics directors, Chun was unsure of the response she was going to face when she entered the position.
However, Chun told the News that she has received glowing feedback from athletes and staff alike.
“One of my fondest memories of Vicky was when we were hosting the Ivy League volleyball championship on the day of the Yale-Harvard game [hosted at Harvard],” said Assistant Athletics Director Colleen Murphy. “She was in Boston watching the football game … and it mattered to her to get back to New Haven to be able to watch our volleyball team also win the Ivy League Championship … She values her teams and that’s just her to her core.”
Although Chun believes in tradition, she also pushes back against Yale’s traditional focus on male sports. Chun told the News that she treats all sports alike.
The News spoke to upperclassmen on the women’s volleyball team about Chun’s approach to men and women’s sports.
“She has been there for us as a resource,” said Audrey Leak ’24, outside hitter for the Yale volleyball team. “She’ll come to our practices, big games, and show us that our sport matters to her. Vicky shows how important it is to have female leaders in sports. Seeing Vicky in her role and how she is able to support all these teams and lead all these teams is really inspiring to me because I feel that women should be in all roles of sports.”
Although she has completed a lot in her short time, Chun hopes to do more in the years to come.
When asked what her goals were for her upcoming years, she seemed set on one overarching objective: constant improvement.
“I’m always pushing my staff — ‘What can we do better?’” Chun said. “I love for our staff at games to say, ‘Welcome to Yale!’ because for folks coming in, there is a certain expectation, whether we like it or not, of a certain excellence of cleanliness of organization. I think our job is to continue with that … to keep getting better.”
This spring, Vicky Chun was named one of the Cushman and Wakefield Athletics Directors of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.
Chun just getting started: AD celebrates five-year mark at Yale
Vicky Chun is the first Asian-American woman athletics director in NCAA Division I history. In 2020, she created Yale Bulldogs for Change, a program that enhances the varsity student-athlete experience for students of color. She has mentored scores of women as they move into leadership positions in college sports. Chun was named a Cushman & Wakefield Athletics Director of the Year for 2022-23 by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. She also won the award in 2018, while serving as the Vice President and Director of Athletics at Colgate University. It was the second time she’d received the honor.
As the first Asian-American woman athletics director in NCAA Division I history, Chun has demonstrated a tireless commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
In 2020, she created Yale Bulldogs for Change, a program that enhances the varsity student-athlete experience for students of color. She has mentored scores of women as they move into leadership positions in college sports and has served as President of Women Leaders in College Sports, the premier leadership organization for women working in college sports. Chun also co-founded the Asian American & Pacific Islander Athletics Alliance (AAPI), a nonprofit association for AAPI leaders working in sports.
In 2021, the publication New Haven Biz honored Chun with its annual “Women in Business” award, which spotlights successful women in the New Haven community who contribute to the economic vitality and community health in the greater New Haven region.
Last fall, Chun partnered with Yale alumni to coordinate a university celebration of the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the U.S. civil rights law passed in 1972 that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs, one of the largest such celebrations in the country.
“As we, both old and new alumnae, paused on campus to celebrate 50 years of Title IX and 50 years of varsity women’s sports at Yale, all of us swiftly folded trailblazing Vicky Chun into Yale’s historic narrative,” said Pratte Lewis ’78, who holds the Yale record for field hockey goalie wins in a career. “We also took the opportunity to thank Vicky for fulfilling her promise to advocate for the resources necessary to modernize the field hockey and softball complex to make it, without doubt, one of the best in the nation.”
“Her support for the women-only sports — field hockey, softball, gymnastics, and volleyball — has made a huge impact already in her time at Yale,” said Lewis.
Two-Time Athletics Director of the Year
Earlier this spring Chun was named a Cushman & Wakefield Athletics Director of the Year for 2022-23 by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA). The honor recognizes the efforts of athletics directors for their commitment and positive contributions to student-athletes, campuses, and their surrounding communities.
It was the second time she’d received the honor, and she became the first to win at two different institutions within the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) since the award’s inception in 1998. Chun also won the award in 2018, while serving as the Vice President and Director of Athletics at Colgate University.
“As I reflect on my first five years at Yale, I am proud of what we have accomplished together,” said Chun. “I am grateful for the loyalty and support shown to our department by President Salovey. And I am so appreciative to our coaches who are the driving force behind our success. I truly love this Yale community and believe the best is yet to come for our Yale Bulldogs.”
Celebrating half a century of varsity women’s athletics
This weekend, Yale Athletics and the Yale Women’s Athletic Network are hosting a series of celebratory events. The events highlight 50 years of varsity women’s athletics and Title IX. The weekend has been in the works for the past two-and-a-half years, according to Maura Grogan ’78, who chairs the Yale women’s athletic network. This includes current and former athletes, coaches and athletic director Vicky Chun, who is the first Asian American woman to run Yale Athletics, as well as the first woman to serve as an NCAA Division I Director of Athletics. In 1972, conditions for female athletes at Yale were still not equal, with some teams provided with poorer facilities than their male peers. In March of 1976, the women”s crew team marched into the office of then-Director of Athletics and stripped their bodies of their written bodies in protest of the lack of equal facilities for the women, including a lack of access to a proper locker room and fewer boats in freezing conditions.
Yale Athletics
This weekend, former female student athletes will return to campus to celebrate 50 years of women’s varsity athletics at Yale.
Celebratory events are scheduled to run from Oct. 14-16, including a dinner at University President Peter Salovey’s house and presentations on both the history of women’s athletics at Yale and hopes for how women’s athletics across the nation will continue to evolve.
The weekend has been in the works for the past two-and-a-half years, according to Maura Grogan ’78, who chairs the Yale Women’s Athletic Network.
“It’s a complex three-day event with a lot of moving parts — three panel discussions, a sold-out gala dinner with a keynote discussion, a reception at Salovey’s house, a Sterling Library archive presentation on the history of women’s sports at Yale, field hockey and volleyball games, and much more,” wrote Grogan, who played for the inaugural women’s hockey team at Yale and later competed in the 1976 Olympics as a luger.
18 figures in women’s varsity athletics at the University will be featured across three panel events. This includes current and former athletes, coaches and athletic director Vicky Chun.
Chun is the first-ever woman to run Yale Athletics, as well as the first Asian American. She is also the first Asian American woman ever to serve as an NCAA Division I Director of Athletics. Formerly, she was the athletics director at Colgate University — her alma mater — where she also played volleyball as an undergraduate, eventually becoming head coach. Chun began her tenure with the Bulldogs on July 1, 2018.
“As Yale’s first woman to serve as the director of athletics, I am humbled and grateful to celebrate our past and current student-athletes,” Chun wrote to the News. “None of us would be here at Yale without our Pioneers and Trailblazers whom we are celebrating and honoring this historical weekend.”
For the women who will be in attendance, this event is about building relationships with other members of the Yale women’s athletics community, celebrating contributions and working to build both the skills and community necessary to continue pushing for better.
Chelsea Kung ’23, who is on the varsity women’s tennis team, said she wants this series of events to facilitate connections across generations of Yale’s female varsity athletes, providing mentorship and a support network to current and future female athletes at Yale.
“My biggest hope is that current female student-athletes at Yale see these accomplished women as mentors and people to look up to when their time on the Yale playing surface comes to a close,” Kung wrote to the News. “It’s something that has pushed me to be the woman I am today, and I only hope that this event is a catalyst for inspiring the next generation of successful women in the world.”
Grogan expressed similar sentiments, commenting that being an athlete helped her reach academic success while at Yale, but also provided “the underpinning” for the rest of her life, noting specifically the confidence that sports gave her.
As such, Grogan hopes that this weekend’s celebration will help empower women.
“Given the various inequities that remain for women in the US and globally, I’m hopeful that we can harness our smarts, energy and Yale’s global reputation to achieve equity soon,” she wrote.
This weekend’s events also celebrate 50 years since the passage of Title IX in June of 1972.
Passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972 and enacted by the 92nd U.S. Congress, Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or education program that receives funding from the federal government. Athletics, which are considered a part of an institution’s education program, are covered under this law.
While Title IX passed in 1972, conditions for female athletes were still not equal. Some women’s teams continued to experience harassment and were provided with poorer facilities than their male peers.
In addition to facing harassment, the Yale women’s crew team lacked access to a proper locker room in freezing conditions and were given fewer boats than the men’s teams.
In March of 1976, the Yale women’s crew team marched into the office of then-Director of Women’s Athletics and Physical Education Joni Barnett’s office and stripped in protest. On their bodies were written either “TITLE IX” or “IX,” and captain Christine Ernst ’76 read aloud a statement demanding equal treatment.
“Our experience was like being under water, or in a mine — you want to get to the surface, or into the light — you know you have to, to live as the person you were born to be, but you don’t know what you’ll find when you get into the sun and air,” Ernst wrote in an email to the News. “There wasn’t a map or a menu for what was next.”
Katrina Garry ’18, a varsity track alumna, discussed the significance of Title IX in women’s varsity sports. Garry is now the Deputy Title IX Coordinator at the University of San Francisco and has been involved in planning this weekend’s programming since 2019.
Garry was part of a September event featuring four decades of Yale women reflecting on the impact of Title IX on women’s athletics. The panel, moderated by Regina Sullivan ’83, featured Garry, Lisa Brummel ’81 and Mónica Lebrón ’01. Brummel is the owner of the WNBA team Seattle Storm, and Lebrón is the Deputy Athletics Director at the University of Tennessee. Sullivan is the Deputy Athletics Director at Northeastern University.
“It was an opportunity for many of us to reflect that we are lucky to not know a world without Title IX,” Garry told the News. “Many of the pioneering Yalies who were on the first varsity field hockey team, swim team, ice-hockey team … had to fight to get opportunities in high-school or were on boys teams.”
University Title IX Coordinator Elizabeth Conklin touched on the “new opportunities” made available to Yale women over the past half-century.
Conklin is also Yale’s associate vice president for institutional equity, access, and belonging.
“Athletics are an integral part of our university’s programs and activities and we celebrate this 50th milestone anniversary for both women’s varsity athletics at Yale and also the passage of Title IX, which opened new opportunities and pathways for generations of students at Yale,” she wrote in an email to the News.
But even with great strides, Garry acknowledged that there is more work to be done.
“It is critical to reflect on how far we’ve come, but the conversation also highlighted the battles we still are fighting whether it is the prevention of abuse and sexual violence in sports, pay equity at the professional level, or inclusion for trans and non-binary athletes in athletics,” Garry told the News.
As of May 24, 18 states have enacted laws or issued statewide rules that bar or limit participation of transgender athletes in sports.
For Yuliia Zhukovets ’23, who is a current member of the squash team, a central part of this weekend’s objective is to look toward the future.
Similar to Garry, Zhukovets hopes that attendees are able to reflect on the past, commending graduates of Yale women’s athletics for all their efforts, but also remind themselves that “there is so much more to accomplish.”
“I am hoping that current Yale Women Athletes will take this weekend as an inspiration to keep giving 100 percent and more to their sports and to advocate for themselves,” Zhukovets told the News. “At the same time, I think it would be incredibly rewarding for the returning Yale Women Athletes to see all the amazing things that have been achieved over the past 50 years and how influential their input was.”
Yale Athletics and YWAN formally announced the weekend’s events on Feb. 2 — which also marked the 36th annual celebration of National Girls and Women in Sports Day.
In the announcement, YWAN also promoted its own fundraising campaign, in conjunction with Yale’s broader ‘For Humanity’ fundraising efforts. Yale launched this $7 billion ‘For Humanity’ campaign last year, which is the University’s largest capital campaign to date.
YWAN noted its goal to raise $5 million for Women’s Intercollegiate Sports Endowment and Resource, or WISER, which is “the first and only endowment” that supports all of Yale’s 18 varsity women’s programs, per the announcement.
The YWAN Committee, composed largely of alumni, guided much of the planning for this weekend’s programming. Grogan and Garry are both members, as is Zhukovets, who is a current student.
Over the past 50 years, Yale has gone from zero varsity women’s teams to 18. 27 of Yale’s female athletes also competed as Olympians.
Grayson Lambert, Paloma Vigil and Hamera Shabbir contributed reporting.
ANIKA ARORA SETH Anika Arora Seth was the 146th Editor in Chief and President of the Yale Daily News from April 2023 until May 2024. Previously, Anika covered STEM at Yale as well as admissions, alumni and financial aid. She also laid out the weekly print edition of the News as a Production & Design editor and was one of the inaugural Diversity, Equity & Inclusion co-chairs. Anika is pursuing a double major in statistics & data science and women’s, gender & sexuality studies.
Yale AD Vicky Chun appointed to NCAA DI Women’s Basketball Committee
Chun is the first woman and first Asian American to serve on the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee. She will serve until the end of the 2024-25 season. She is also a member of the NCAA’s Division I Football Oversight Committee and the NCAA Women’s Division II Board of Directors. Chun is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego. She was also the first Asian-American woman to serve as the head coach of a Division I women’s basketball team.
Chun, who has served in her post at Yale since July 1, 2018, will be filling the committee position vacated by Lisa Peterson, senior associate commissioner of the Pac-12 Conference, who also served as committee chair the past two years.
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“It is an honor to serve on the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee and have the opportunity to represent Yale University and the Ivy League,” Chun said. “I have great admiration for (NCAA Vice President of Women’s Basketball) Lynn Holzman and am eager to work alongside my esteemed committee members. It is an exciting and historic time for women’s basketball, and I look forward to the work we will do together to support and continue its impact and growth.”
Chun is the first woman and first Asian American to serve as director of athletics at Yale, with oversight of 35 varsity teams and over 50 club and intramural sports, as well as a portfolio of athletic facilities. She previously served as vice president and director of athletics at Colgate, where she had the distinction of being the first Asian American woman athletics director in NCAA Division I history.
She also has served as one of 40 members of the NCAA Division I Council, where she was vice chair of the NCAA Division I Football Oversight Committee, as well as a member of the Division I Football Competition Committee.
Chun joins a 12-member NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee in 2024-25 that includes committee Chair Derita Dawkins, assistant vice chancellor and deputy director of athletics at Arkansas; Liz Darger, senior associate athletic director at Brigham Young; Deneé Barracato, deputy director of athletics at Northwestern; Jill Bodensteiner, vice president and director of athletics at Saint Joseph’s; Jenny Bramer, executive associate athletics director at San Diego State; Amanda Braun, athletics director at Milwaukee; Amy Folan, associate vice president and director of athletics at Central Michigan; Alex Gary, director of athletics at Western Carolina; Lizzie Gomez, deputy commissioner at the Southland Conference; Josh Heird, director of athletics at Louisville; and Lynn Tighe, senior associate athletics director at Villanova.
Yale Athletic Director Vicky Chun’s contract extended for five more years
Yale Athletics announced Tuesday that Director of Athletics Vicky Chun’s contract has been extended through June 30, 2026. Chun, whose hire was announced in February 2018, started working for the University in July of that year. Previously, she served as vice president and director of athletics at Colgate University. Chun is the first Asian American woman to be the athletic director of an NCAA Division I program. She won championships in both roles for volleyball as a student-athlete and then head coach atColgate. The athletic director position at Yale is named after Chun’s predecessor, Tom Beckett, who retired in June 2018 after 24 years on the job. The announcement noted that facility restorations have taken place at the Gales Ferry Boathouse, the newly-renamed George H.W. Bush Field and Coxe Cage. Additionally, a field house near Reese Stadium, a facility for Yale”s soccer and lacrosse programs, is nearing completion.
Courtesy of Yale Athletics
On Tuesday, Yale Athletics announced that Director of Athletics Vicky Chun’s contract has been extended through June 30, 2026.
Chun, whose hire was announced in February 2018, started working for the University in July of that year. Previously, she served as vice president and director of athletics at Colgate University. In this role, she was the first Asian American woman to be the athletic director of an NCAA Division I program. At Yale, Chun is the first woman and Asian American to serve in the position.
“I am thankful for the support I have received from President Salovey and the Yale leadership,” Chun said in the Yale Athletics press release announcing her contract extension. “We will continue to build upon the strong foundation of academic and athletic excellence for our 900 student-athletes. Yale is a very special place, and it’s an honor to be a part of a community that produces world leaders.”
Chun is the only person in NCAA Division I athletic history to be player of the year and subsequently coach of the year in the same conference. She won championships in both roles for volleyball as a student-athlete and then head coach at Colgate, where she received a bachelor’s degree in 1991 and then served as head coach of the volleyball program from 1994 to 1997.
“With Vicky’s steady guidance, Yale’s athletic programs have sustained superior academic performance over the past few years, and we are currently tied for best in the country for graduation success rate,” Salovey wrote in the release. “At the same time, our student-athletes have given us plenty of other reasons to celebrate, with national championships, conference titles, and postseason wins. Of course, there have also been glorious historic victories like the Yale over Harvard win at the Yale Bowl in 2019, also known as the revenge of the Yale–Harvard tie of 1968.”
Over the past three years, the announcement noted that facility restorations have taken place at the Gales Ferry Boathouse, the newly-renamed George H.W. Bush Field and Coxe Cage. Additionally, a field house near Reese Stadium, a facility for Yale’s soccer and lacrosse programs, is nearing completion and will include an athletic medicine and sports performance space, a team center, locker rooms and offices.
Newly appointed Student-Athlete Advisory Council President and women’s tennis player Chelsea Kung ’23 expressed her support for Chun’s contract extension.
“Having Vicky Chun as our Athletic Director has been huge for Yale Athletics as a whole,” Kung said.
“As an Asian American woman, seeing AD Chun prosper amongst a heavily male dominated industry is inspiring to me — as well as so many others. I look forward to seeing the results of her ongoing efforts towards making Yale Athletics and the overall student-athlete experience even more successful than ever before.”
Since becoming Yale’s athletic director in summer 2018, Chun has filled head coaching positions for five programs. She hired women’s hockey head coach Mark Bolding from Norwich University in April 2019, promoted fencing head coach Haibin Wang from his previous role as associate head coach in May 2019, brought on women’s golf head coach Lauren Harling from Indiana in June 2019 and hired men’s tennis head coach Chris Drake from Dartmouth in June 2019.
Chun’s first hire was former women’s soccer head coach Brendan Faherty, who left Yale amid allegations of misconduct in November 2019 after being hired in December 2018. She then promoted Sarah Martinez to the role of women’s soccer head coach in December 2019, less than a year after Martinez joined Yale as the program’s assistant coach.
The athletic director position at Yale is named after Chun’s predecessor, Tom Beckett, who retired in June 2018 after 24 years on the job.
James Richardson contributed reporting.
Source: https://athleticdirectoru.com/video/celebrating-women-in-sport-with-yale-chun/