Bates College

Campbell-McGovern went from star athlete to star supporter of athletics at Bates

Carolyn Campbell-McGovern has given over 25 years of support both to Bates and to the highest standards of athletic participation at the collegiate level. The first All-American women’s lacrosse player at Bates, she majored in English — though she once playfully described her Bates career as a double major in field hockey and lacrosse, with yes, English. She was captain of both field hockey and lacrosse, and was awarded the Senior Athletic Citation upon graduation. Carolyn earned an MBA at Temple University, where she also was an assistant coach of their defending national champion women’s lacrosse team. She served also as assistant director of athletics at Dartmouth and an associate director of athletics at Wellesley. Since 1993, she has been the Senior Associate Director of the Council of Ivy Group Presidents, responsible for all athletic compliance efforts in the Ivy League. As a senior Ivy League administrator, Carolyn is responsible for 33 sports and 7,000 Ivy scholar-athletes in this highly competitive league with its stringent compliance standards for admissions and financial aid. She works on all levels of the league’s efforts, from admissions, recruiting and eligibility to officiating and scheduling. She also directs the Ivy League’s NCAA compliance program, and works with the NCAA to develop athletic policies. As one would imagine, 15 years as an Ivy League athletic administrator requires work on an immense variety of topics — Carolyn’s name in a Google search produces about 700 results, including a long article in the Yale Daily News on the sensible Ivy League proposal to limit or ban endless text messaging from coaches to recruits. Carolyn has also served national athletic programs through the United States Olympic Committee and the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators. She represents the Ivy League on the NCAA Management Council, served as the original chair of the NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey Committee, and completed two terms as chair of the NCAA Olympic Sports Liaison Committee. As an alumna, Carolyn has been involved with almost every form of support to her college available to her. In addition to her own steady philanthropy to Bates, she has organized her class’s reunions, served on the Bates Fund Committee, helped recruit classes as an Alumni-in-Admissions interviewer, served on the alumni Athletic Advisory Committee, and as a Career Services advisor. Upon her graduation from Bates she was almost immediately recruited into Alumni-in-Admissions, and wrote her first letter of recommendation for an applicant to Bates shortly afterwards. Her heartfelt loyalty to Bates and her abilities as a public speaker have been visible at many Bates events: she was the alumni speaker at the kick-off gathering in Philadelphia for the recent campaign for Bates. Recently, as a member of a Bates Trustee Subcommittee on Athletics Fundraising, Carolyn helped plan the formation of the Friends of Bates Athletics, to support our teams. As a student who supported herself via scholarship endowments at Bates, she has returned that support to help students behind her: in her alumni files are copies of many years of letters from Bates students thanking her for her support of a scholarship fund at Bates in memory of a close friend and classmate which has helped the students with their educational expenses, and for her support of the field hockey and lacrosse teams. Not all great athletes at Bates go on to have careers which shape American athletics and the ethical principles for which this Bates Scholar-Athlete Society stands. Carolyn Campbell-McGovern has. She has devoted her professional life to making very high levels of athletic competition and the highest levels of academic success a seamless fabric at some of the strongest and most widely admired universities in the world. For her devotion to her college and for her faithful and successful professional commitments to making sports the highly respected and admired facet of an Ivy League education that it is, we are honored to welcome Carolyn Campbell-McGovern into the membership of the Bates Scholar-Athlete Society.