Former multi-stop Director of Athletics Sandy Barbour sits down with ADU’s Steph Garcia Cichosz at the 2024 Women Leaders Convention to reflect on her experience as one of a handful of female Power 4 ADs and offer insight into navigating change from the chair. Barbour: “There’s no doubt in my mind that starting out as a coach – an assistant field hockey and lacrosse coach – that I had no concept of athletic director, assistant director, associate athletic director, any of that. … There were very few women who were leading Division I ‘Power 5 or Power 4’ athletic departments and so you just didn’t think about it. We like to say ‘If you see it, you can be it’ – well, what happens when you don’t see it? Frankly in the early-to-mid ’80s, I didn’t see it.” Barbour pinpoints the virtues of stick-to-itiveness and resilience as key leadership qualities for today’s ADs; discusses the ways she’d lead differently if she were to sit in the Big Chair again today; and reminds busy leaders to prioritize organizing their department’s “human resources” to effectively tackle the workload and challenges of today’s landscape.
The conversation is indexed below for efficient viewing (click the time stamp to jump to a specific question/topic).
