CoSIDA Board Expands Kowal's Role and Duties, Naming Her Director of External Affairs
Barb Kowal, who this past June was named CoSIDA's (College Sports Information Directors of America) first-ever Communications Director, has been elevated to Director of External Affairs, as announced by CoSIDA President Justin Doherty (University of Wisconsin) Monday.
In her expanded role, Kowal will take on duties in the areas of marketing, branding and convention planning and coordination in addition to her previous duties as CoSIDA’s coordinator for communications-based duties and initiatives.
"With her Director of External Affairs appointment, Barb now brings a daily focus to communications, marketing, branding and convention planning that CoSIDA has never had,” Doherty stated. “This daily focus will benefit our membership greatly. With the July retirement of CoSIDA’s long-serving Marketing Director Ed Carpenter, the Board came to look upon Ed's decision as an opportunity to reallocate staff functions and duties to best serve the organization. That evaluation led us to ask Executive Director John Humenik to take on more responsibility with regard to fund-raising duties that Ed had overseen. As a result, the Board was in a position to significantly change the focus of Carpenter's allocated staff position from fully fund-raising to other areas.
“We decided that it was best to have Barb, who has impressed us in her short-time as Communications Director, take on these duties with an expanded position and role,” Doherty said. “We believe Barb can do for these important functions what John has proved he can do in the Executive Director leadership role.”
“I welcome the opportunity to serve our national organization in this expanded role,” noted Kowal. “In my short tenure with CoSIDA, I’ve been impressed with the proactive roles the Board and John Humenik are taking to raise the profile of our organization and develop new strategic directions.
“I look forward to helping enhance CoSIDA’s circle of influence, both internally and externally. Internally, we want to help athletic communicators grow in their professional positions and deal effectively with the pressing issues in our ever-changing communications world. Externally, CoSIDA continues to build strong relationships with key athletic administrators, partners and constituents who help us advance shared objectives.”
An award-winning and active member of CoSIDA throughout her athletic communications career, Kowal most recently served as Assistant Director of Athletics/Media Relations at The University of Texas-Austin from 1997-2008. She oversaw all women’s athletics publicity efforts. Prior to that, Kowal served as Senior Associate Director of Athletic Communications at The University of Connecticut (1985-1997) and was the first full-time SID at Division III Manhattanville College for three years.
At both UT and UConn, Kowal was the primary contact for the nationally recognized women’s basketball teams. While overseeing UConn basketball PR efforts, she helped cultivate and build the largest daily media following for any collegiate women’s sport.
Kowal served on numerous CoSIDA committees throughout her career and was on the Board of Directors from 2002-05. A member of the NCAA Women’s Final Four Media Coordination Committee (1997-2008), she also was Division I chair of the Bob Cousy National Point Guard of the Year award. Kowal led Texas women’s athletics to 85 national/regional honors from CoSIDA for award-winning publications, including 15 “Best in the Nation” honors.
“With John in place as Executive Director in March of 2008, we finally had someone to concentrate on leading our organization and profession on a daily basis,” Doherty concluded. “John's leadership has resulted in impressive advancements for CoSIDA in general organization and initiatives, fund-raising, visibility and the growth of our leadership and CoSIDA profile within the athletics community.
“The Board believes we now have two leaders in place to concentrate daily on CoSIDA business which in the past volunteers and part-time staff did their best to coordinate. John has taken us to another level of growth and outreach since coming aboard and we believe that Barb’s experience and expertise can continue to elevate our organization to yet another level.”