WEST POINT, N.Y. -- Over 290 women administrators and coaches from five NCAA Division I athletic conferences across the northeast came together at the Women’s Leadership Forum on Tuesday, May 17 at the United States Military Academy.
The Women’s Leadership Forum is a partnership between the America East Conference, the Ivy League, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, Northeast Conference and the Patriot League to provide an impactful professional development experience for their women coaches and administrators.
The content of the day was curated to align with the theme: “Empowering the Current and Future Generation of Women in Sport”. The forum began with keynote speaker Crista Samaras from BRAVE Enterprises. The subsequent sessions included panels consisting of coaches and athletics administrators, including career navigation in administration and coaching. The topics featured throughout the day included managing up and across and conflict resolution, supporting the mental health of student-athletes, females coaching and mentoring male student-athletes and staffs, dealing with challenging parents and building positive team dynamics. Breakout sessions were used for many of the topics to allow for enhanced, smaller group discussion.
This was the fourth year of the forum, and the second year that the forum focused on development of both women administrators and women coaches. When the forum originated in 2016, the focus was on the professional development of women coaches in the partner conferences. However, statistics published during the 2016-17 academic year, demonstrated that women represented only 11.3 percent of Division I athletics directors and 39.7 percent of Division I head coaches in women’s sports. Thus, the forum was expanded to include women administrators in an effort to increase representation of women administrators and coaches in leadership positions.
About America East: The America East provides its member schools and their athletic programs a platform upon which student-athletes can achieve both collegiate and life success through the promotion and nurturing of athletic excellence, academic achievement and leadership, on and off the field.
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