2024 NIRSA School for Early Career Professionals

Walter Kolis has 10 years of professional experience in collegiate recreation and currently provides leadership on campus as the Associate Director, Athletic & Recreation Facilities and Operations at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. A proud graduate of both the NIRSA School’s Level I & II (Red Hot Chili Rec’ers & Lar’s Bears) Walter is thrilled to join the faculty in 2020.

Walter began his career as an intramural official at The University of Dayton prior to becoming the Aquatics & Facilities graduate Assistant at Ball State University. Walter’s first professional position was in aquatics at The University of Alabama. Walter then served as the Assistant Director for Member Services & Staff Development at The Georgia Institute of Technology before joining Emory for his current role.

An engaged member of the NIRSA, Walter is currently serving on the NIRSA Audit & Finance Committee, and recently served as Chair of the 2019 NIRSA Annual Conference Program Committee. Walter was instrumental in envisioning and creating the NIRSA Region II Excellence Endowment, drafting the Region II financial planning principals, and chaired the host committee for the NIRSA 2016 Region II conference in Atlanta.

In his free time, Walter enjoys running (2 marathons), officiating collegiate and high school volleyball, and countless weekends at the Zoo or Aquarium with his wife, Jessica and 2 children, Ben & Zach.

After working in collegiate recreation for 13 years in a variety of areas (aquatics, intramural sports, sport clubs, team building, special events, student development, assessment), Dr. Megan Krone is now the Executive Director of Academic Coaching and Editing with Heartful Editor where she supports the editing team and works with doctoral students writing their dissertations. Megan is also an adjunct faculty member at DePaul University in the School of Education. Megan has been an active NIRSA member for 13 years. In addition to her role on the NIRSA faculty, Megan serves on the editorial board of the Recreation Sports Journal and as the NIRSA representative for the Higher Education Associations Sustainability Consortium (HEASC). Outside of work and professional service, Megan loves to try new things and keeps a blog about her adventures, which range from making homemade pasta to learning to surf to enrolling in a doctoral program. Megan is also an avid sports fan and regularly carves out time in her schedule for college football and international soccer, especially the World Cup.

Currently serves as Director of Campus Recreation & Wellness at Elon University, where he has been since 2015. Larry has sixteen years of professional experience in collegiate recreation, including nine years of classroom teaching experience on a variety of topics including officiating, youth sports coaching, and adventure-based ecotourism. His work at Elon also includes leading an institutional student wellness and well-being initiative.

A NIRSA member since 1999, he has presented at several state, regional, and national conferences and has served on a variety of NIRSA committees. Larry also has twelve years of college basketball officiating experience across all NCAA divisions, and currently is on the staff of the Big South Conference and Southern Conference.

In his spare time, Larry enjoys golfing, hiking, cheering for all Pittsburgh professional sports teams, and spending quality time with his wife, Missy, three-year old daughter Ella, and dog Cooper.

Dr. Heather Sanderson is an Assistant Professor, Nutrition, Health and Human Performance and Director, Lowery Fitness Center at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC. Like many, she began in the field of collegiate recreation as an intramural sports official and group fitness instructor at the University of Arkansas where she obtain her bachelor degree in kinesiology.  Thereafter, she was the Graduate Assistant of Fitness at The University of West Florida in which she a recipient of the 2012 UWF Outstanding Alumni Award.  Her first professional position was at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro as the Assistant Director, Fitness. She completed her doctorate of education in kinesiology from UNCG in 2008.  After a decade at UNCG, she made the move an hour away to North Carolina State University as an Associate Director, Wellness and Recreation in which she oversaw finance and fundraising, facility operations, marketing and communication, member services, outdoor adventures, student development and research and assessment. Her passion for research and teaching on physical activity, wellness and college student success flourished in which she made the leap to faculty at Meredith College to focus her attention on the advancement of collegiate recreation research.  She has served on NIRSA’s Health and Wellbeing commission, NIRSA’s Research and Assessment committee and is on the NIRSA School of Collegiate Recreation faculty.

Bridget Weikel serves as the Associate Dean of Students at Old Dominion University, providing strategic direction and management in the areas of Recreation & Wellness and Housing & Residence Life. She holds values in education and wellness that extend into her daily work and long term strategic planning and believes strong collaborative partnerships are critical and a goal when designing and implementing programs and services that meet the larger vision of the organization.

Bridget began her recreation career as a student employee for the outdoor recreation program at the University of Maryland, College Park, became a graduate assistant at Texas State University, then worked in campus activities and recreation programs at Rider University. She spent time in corporate meeting and event planning before coming to Old Dominion University in the Outdoor Adventure Program. Bridget transitioned to the Director of Recreation & Wellness at ODU and served in this role for five years, participating in strategic university and department initiatives in the areas of campus-wide wellness, distance learning, customer service, budgeting, and assessment.

She earned a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Master of Science in Recreation and Leisure Services from Texas State University. She is currently working on her Ph.D. in Higher Education.

Dr. Wendy Windsor serves as the Director of Campus Recreation at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. In this capacity, she provides leadership to 19 full-time and 300+ part-time employees. She is committed to building strong organizational cultures, mentoring her staff, and serving as a role model within NIRSA and the Tulane community.

Within NIRSA, Wendy has chaired or served on several committees and work teams to include Student Professional Development, Programs Committee, NCCS Standards Committee, Nominations & Appointments, Region IV/Region VI Conference planning committee(s), Commission for Sustainable Practices, and the Leadership Commission.  She has also served as state director for Tennessee, and was co-founder of the Southeast Collegiate Soccer Alliance (Region II Soccer league).

Originally from Aiken, SC, Wendy has had the unique experience of working in Region II, IV, and VI.  She is a three time Tiger, earning degrees from both Clemson and Auburn University, and served 4 years as Associate Director -Programs & Outreach at Louisiana State University (LSU).  In addition to her current role at Tulane, Wendy has worked in Campus Recreation at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Middle Tennessee State, University, and UCLA.

Attending her first NIRSA national conference in 2002, Wendy has been an engaged member of the association since then.  Being a past attendee of both NIRSA Level 1 and Level II schools, it has been her goal to come back and “pay it forward”.  She is honored and excited for her second year on the the NIRSA School of Collegiate Recreation faculty team!