“Women should not be limited to traditional positions in such as assistant or associate director of athletics. ... In particular, when director of athletics positions become vacant, institutions should consider hiring a woman for the job,” she said in her prepared statement.
Fuller’s words have proved prophetic. At the time, she was in one of those “traditional” roles as associate director of Intercollegiate Athletics at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. But she went on to crack glass ceilings at several schools. She held similar positions at Maryland-Eastern Shore, Tennessee State and Northeastern Illinois universities.
Last month came another Fuller first: The 56-year-old daughter of a North Carolina sharecropper became the first woman associate director at Jackson State University in Mississippi. Earlier this year, another gender barrier was broken when Dr. Carolyn Meyers became the institution’s first female president.
