| In establishing the Bates Scholar-Athlete
Society with Dan Doyle’s assistance in March of 2005, Suzanne
Coffey said, “Bates student-athletes will know from their
first days on campus that induction into the Scholar-Athlete
Society is a goal whose achievement is modeled by generations of
outstanding students. By dedicating themselves intensively to both
academic and athletic pursuits, students at Bates set a standard
for each other and for our wider academic and athletic communities.
In creating the Scholar-Athlete Society, Bates is presenting to our
students a clear statement about the expectation for excellence in
the classroom and achievement on the playing field. "Athletics
certainly should not dominate," she continued, "but it absolutely
is part of the mission of our academic institutions. It should be
considered in the same context as classroom learning,
service-learning and study abroad." How fitting that today we
induct Suzanne into the Scholar-Athlete Society as a former coach
and member of the faculty. In the mid-1970s, Suzanne was among the
first women in the United States to receive an athletic scholarship
to attend college. Suzanne, a painter, had considered going to art
school. But when the University of New Hampshire offered her a full
scholarship to play field hockey and lacrosse, the opportunity was
too good to pass up. Suzanne majored in studio art and minored in
philosophy at UNH. “I was living in three worlds,” she
recalls. “The athletes and the artists and the philosophers
didn’t know each other.” Ever since then, she has been
trying to strengthen connections between athletics and academics,
and she received a master’s degree in public policy from the
Edmund Muskie School of Public Service at the University of
Southern Maine, where she currently is a doctoral candidate.
Suzanne taught and was a member of the Bates Athletics Department
beginning in 1985, when she was named associate director of
athletics, assistant professor of physical education and head coach
of the women’s lacrosse team. She was promoted to associate
professor in 1995, and was named athletic director in 1991, after
serving as interim AD the year before. In her 15 years as the AD at
Bates, she successfully administered the 30 intercollegiate teams
and 12 competitive club sports programs, oversaw expansion of
Bates’ athletic facilities, and served on campus committees
related to diversity and the campus master plan. Suzanne is also a
national leader in collegiate athletics. She has been a member of
the NCAA’s association-wide Diversity Leadership Task Force
and held the top Division III post as chair of the Management
Council in 2004–05. In 2003–04, she was vice chair of
the council and a member of key working groups that formulated NCAA
reforms designed to align practices at member institutions more
closely with Division III philosophy. She has also served on the
association-wide Executive Committee, as well as the Championships
and Budget committees. Suzanne is also active in enhancing
educational development opportunities for student-athletes at the
regional and national level. In 1999, she was named a Sports Ethics
Fellow with the Institute for International Sport and received the
Institute's Frank W. Keaney Award in 2002, “in recognition of
commitment to the scholar-athlete ideal.” She was also
honored as the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic
Administrators Division III National Administrator of the Year in
2001–02. In 2005, the National Association of Collegiate
Directors of Athletics selected Suzanne as its Northeast Region
Athletics Director of the Year. She went on to serve a stint as
interim vice president of the Institute for International Sport,
where she also was commissioner of the 2006 World Scholar-Athlete
Games. Suzanne now serves as the Director of Physical Education and
Athletics & Department Chair at Amherst College. For her
passion for academics, the arts and athletics, her devotion to
melding all three into more rounded educational experiences and her
leadership at local and national levels, we are honored to welcome
Suzanne R. Coffey into the Bates Scholar-Athlete Society. |
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