Eastern Connecticut State University

Through 2020-21, Lori Runksmeier has served as a Division III director of athletics for 22 years. In all, Runksmeier has spent over 30 years in athletic administration, the last seven of them after being appointed the eighth director of athletics at Eastern Connecticut State University in the summer of 2015. Prior to her appointment at Eastern, Runksmeier served in a similar capacity for 16 years as director of athletics at New England College.

At Eastern, Runksmeier inherited a successful athletic program which featured 17 intercollegiate programs and has since elevated the overall success of the program, as well as expanding the offerings to 19 (ten for women, nine for men) with the additions of men’s swimming in 2019-20 and men’s golf in the fall of 2020.

Runksmeier feels that her responsibilities to student-athletes are “a combination of raising responsible leaders and citizens and being excellent in athletics. I think athletes play because they want to get better and they want to succeed and I want them to have that opportunity, but I also want them leaving here with a good foundation to be a great adults. Those two things are pretty important to me.”

Under Runksmeier, Eastern has become the most consistently successful program – both athletically and academically – in the Little East Conference. Although Eastern had finished among the top three institutions 13 times in the first 15 years of the LEC’s Commissioner’s Cup —which recognizes the most successful athletic program in the conference’s championship sports -- the Warriors had never won the cup prior to Runksmeier’s arrival. In her first year, Eastern was third overall, then followed that up by winning the cup four consecutive years through 2019-20 (there was no cup awarded in 2020-21 due to Covid).

Prior to Runksmeier’s arrival, Eastern had claimed the Presidents’ Cup – which represents overall academic excellence among the LEC’s championship sports – twice in the first six years of the award. In the following six years under Runksmeier (through 2020/21), the Warriors have won four cups, finished second once and third once.

In the Little East, Runksmeier currently serves as liaison for the sports of men’s and women’s lacrosse.

Following a two-year term as vice president, Runksmeier began a two-year term as president of the National Association of Division III Athletic Administrators (NADIIIAA) in the fall of 2020. NADIIIAA is comprised of athletics administrators from over 350 institutions and conferences competing at the NCAA Division III level. The Association encourages the continued development of athletics programs focused on the student-athlete and based on sound educational principles and the Division III philosophy. NADIIIAA is administered by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA).
 
At New England College – an NCAA Division III institution of 1,000 undergraduates affiliated with the North Atlantic Conference – Runksmeier oversaw 19 intercollegiate programs, as well as club and recreation sports and served as an adjunct faculty member in the kinesiology department. Under Runksmeier, the NEC athletic department added seven programs and a lighted turf field for field hockey, men’s and women’s lacrosse, and club and recreation sports and conducted facility renovations to its indoor practice facility and outdoor fields, hockey rink, and athletic training room.
 
For three years prior to her appointment at Eastern, Runksmeier had been a member of the NCAA Division III Management Council, also serving previously as the council’s vice chair and previously as chair of the NCAA Division III Interpretations & Legislation and Women’s Ice Hockey committees.

Prior to her appointment at NEC, the Ledyard, IA native spent three years as coordinator of athletic department relations at Division III College of Saint Benedict after serving as administrative assistant to the director of women’s athletics at Division II St. Cloud State University for four years and as assistant sports information director at Division II Minnesota State University, Mankato for one.
 
Runksmeier holds a B.S. Degree in Physical Education and English and an M.A. in Athletic Administration, both from Minnesota State, Mankato.