Meaghan Donahue Wies graduated from St. Thomas University in 2006 with an honours degree in psychology and hopes of working in the field of neuropsychology. Now, 17 years later, she’s back at STU for a new career opportunity as STU’s athletic director.
“It’s been kind of an interesting, nostalgic, but also weird experience because things are a little different, but a lot of things are exactly the same,” said Donahue Wies.
After she graduated from STU, Donahue Wies moved to British Columbia to pursue a masters in psychology, but soon realized it wasn’t the path she wanted to take. She made the move back to Fredericton to complete a business degree in sports management from the University of New Brunswick. She said the career switch was one of the hardest decisions she’s ever made.
“It was sort of like my quarter-life crisis, but I just found that I was in a direction that was not bringing me joy.”
Donahue Wies spent ten years with the Canadian Sport Center Atlantic, now known as the Canadian Sport Institute Atlantic (CSIA). There, she was the Athlete Services Manager, which involved coordinating support services for high-performance athletes and working collaboratively with provincial sport organizations on their “performance strategies.”
Her additional role as Game Plan Advisor saw her working in groups and one-on-one with athletes about their lives outside of sport.
“Just making sure that athletes were set up on a path to be able to find similar fulfillment outside of sport as they were experiencing within sport,” said Donahue Wies.
She also worked as a Career Development Practitioner after obtaining a certificate in career development. She felt it was a great way to bridge her earlier work in psychology and her interest around teaching.
“I definitely had a lot of really heartbreaking conversations with athletes over the years because they weren’t ready and it’s a really hard transition to make out of being an athlete,” she said. “There’s a big grieving period, there’s a big loss of identity that comes with it.”
After leaving the CSIA to try something new, Donahue Wies began working as the Executive Director of the Fredericton District Soccer Association (FDSA). She said the experience taught her about HR and financial management, Safe Sport implementation and policies and procedures, skills she believes will carry into her new position as athletic director.
“I wanted to do a lot more than I got the opportunity to do but when jobs like this come up, you have to take a crack at them.”
When Donahue Wies saw that former athletic director Michael Eagles was retiring, she thought to herself “who was taking that role?”
“I just started watching for [the job posting] really hoping that I didn’t miss my chance because it’s just a great opportunity.”
The open position was an opportunity to return to the university where her career started, which she loved attending and to move into a new area of sports management.
“Just an opportunity to be kind of a part of something bigger,” said Donahue Wies.
Related: Eagles announces retirement, leaves behind 21-year legacy at STU
To prepare for the role, she chatted with other athletic directors to understand the role and the expectations surrounding it. She then familiarized herself with the policy and operations manuals, before her official start on Oct. 25.
Her three main areas of focus during her time as athletic director will be wellness, community and excellence.
“I think athletes are people first and student-athletes are students first,” said Donahue Wies. “As important as sport is and as performance is, we just can’t lose sight.”
She hopes she can lead an athletic department that is engaged in the community, within the local sport community as well as the wider student body and faculty. Despite these larger goals, she still hopes to see winning teams.
“We’re still here to perform.”
Though her work has just begun, Donahue Wies is already enjoying working in the athletics department, with some familiar faces she has known from her previous work in sports management.
“I’m excited to work with a really big team of awesome people who also love sport and to work towards that common goal of enhancing the student athlete experience,” she said.
“Whatever role I can contribute to that is probably the thing I’m most excited for.”
