Lynn Holleran, a transformative and visionary leader in college athletics, has been selected as The College of Wooster's director of athletics and physical education following a national search. Holleran begins her role at the College on Jan. 8. Reporting to the interim vice president for student affairs, Holleran will serve as the senior administrator for Wooster's NCAA Division III intercollegiate athletics program, contributing to strategic planning, organizational change management, equity-minded practices, program innovation, advancement initiatives, and the purposeful holistic development of student-athletes.
"It is a pleasure to join our campus community in welcoming Lynn Holleran to The College of Wooster," said President Anne McCall. "As a national leader in higher education athletics who is returning to her Div. III student-athlete roots, she brings a career-long commitment to excellence. Under Lynn's student-focused leadership, our students will thrive athletically, academically, and in their own leadership development. I look forward to working with her as a champion for our student-athletes."
As director of athletics at Wooster, Holleran will develop a contemporary organizational culture and structure that promotes shared accountability for the management of department resources, operations, and planning. She will prepare and monitor budgets, oversee plans for facility use, lead and coordinate efforts to identify, attract, enroll, and retain student-athletes, and represent the College at local community, district, regional, and national events. Holleran will maintain collaborative relationships with Admissions, Advancement, Academic Affairs, and other offices and departments across campus as an advocate for student-athlete success.
"I am thrilled and grateful to become a part of the College community," said Holleran. "I would like to express my sincere gratitude to President McCall and the entire search committee for extending this incredible opportunity to me. My experience as a Div. III student-athlete has instilled in me a profound appreciation for the value of a liberal arts education and the educational benefits that come from participating in athletics. It is an honor to join an institution with such a remarkable academic reputation and a strong history of successfully graduating student-athletes while excelling in sports."
Holleran arrives in Wooster following nearly eight years at Pennsylvania State University. Holleran's tenure at Penn State included four and a half years as deputy athletic director where she provided executive and strategic leadership in support of the vice president for intercollegiate athletics for 31 sports programs, over 800 student-athletes, and 325 employees. Among her chief duties, Holleran oversaw strategic plan implementation within the department and aligned it with Penn State's overall strategic plan. She served as primary liaison with key campus partners, established and led a comprehensive sport administrator oversight program to ensure consistency across industry best practices, and developed a sport administrator mentorship program to prepare the next generation of sport administrators. Additionally, Holleran developed onboarding and offboarding procedures for all department employees and was an integral part of creating Name Image Likeness (NIL) education, policies, and procedures. She also led the committees that created policies and procedures for distribution of the Alston funds and that addressed NCAA Title IX sexual violence policies.
Prior to becoming deputy athletic director at Penn State, Holleran provided executive leadership and oversight of human resources, compliance, risk management, and conduct within athletics as senior associate athletic director. She worked closely with campus partners to establish appropriate policies and procedures in the wake of institution control issues, worked to lead areas of ethics and integrity within athletics and student conduct, partnered with the Morgan Academic Center to establish more defined policies and procedures, and provided leadership to all sport administrators while serving as sport administrator for five programs.
Academics is Holleran's true passion, as it enables her to combine her loves for education and leadership. She led the University of Minnesota's McNamara Academic Center for Student-Athletes for more than five years. As director, Holleran and her team developed a comprehensive academic support unit that provided academic counseling, student development, and career advising to 750 student-athletes across 25 NCAA Div. I sports. Under Holleran's leadership, academic success and graduation rates increased across the board. She developed a consistent set of policies to effectively govern all unit operations with a primary focus on integrity, consistency, fairness, and accountability, and the Academic Progress Rates (APR) scores improved to the best numbers in program history.
Holleran transitioned back to academics after seven years as deputy chief of staff in Minnesota's Office of the President. As the liaison between the president's office and athletics, Holleran honed skills in issues and crisis management, student affairs, communications, capital projects, emergency management, campus safety, and day-to-day management of president's office operations. While serving as deputy chief of staff, Holleran played a lead role in bringing an on-campus venue to reality for Minnesota's football team. She oversaw the NCAA 10-year certification process and was selected to serve on the task force for academic support and performance for student-athletes to examine key issues surrounding academic outcomes and the coordination and delivery of academic support services.
Earlier in her career, Holleran gained significant experience in areas of sport oversight, compliance, policy development and analysis, and Title IX gender equity as a senior administrator at Boston College. Holleran's career started at Northwestern University, where she was assistant director of academic and student services.
Holleran earned a master's degree in management, organizational behavior, and marketing from J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern and was a NCAA Div. III student-athlete while earning a bachelor's degree in economics at Beloit College. At Beloit, Holleran was a three-sport standout, earning four All-Midwest Conference honors as a centerfielder, three all-conference laurels in basketball, and she was an all-state selection in soccer. Holleran was inducted into Beloit's Athletics Hall of Honor in 1997.