Goshen College announced Wednesday that Erica Albertin, the current athletic director, will step down from her post on September 12, transitioning into a new position as associate director for athletic health and wellness. 

In her new role Albertin will supervise the head athletic trainer, provide athletic training and continue to work as a DEI officer. She will also teach and advise students in the kinesiology department, and will begin responsibilities as a deputy Title IX coordinator for athletics, according to an email from the president’s office. 

For Albertin, the transition comes from two main reasons. 

“I have three little boys and I want to be able to have some more time,” she said in an interview with The Record. “The director job is awesome, but it’s a big time, like all hours of the day, type of commitment. So I’m looking forward to having just a different work-life balance.”

The second reason is a desire to get back into athletic training. 

“There’s not a ton of athletic trainers, especially in our area,” Albertin said. “Being able to be back with the student athletes in that sort of a way, and that’s what I’m a doctor in, I’m super excited to do some athletic training and then also teaching.”

Albertin was prompted to ask for a change by the start of the new school year for her boys, and said it was “a personal decision to do what’s best for my family.”

“Our coaching staff is ready to go, our student athletes are back on campus, they’re gearing up, coming off a ton of success from last year,” Albertin said. “It might feel like weird timing, but to me it’s actually really good timing and I’m happy with where we are at this point.”

The Record spoke to President Rebecca Stoltzfus about the announcement, who outlined the process of the change. 

“The process on this began last week as Erica entered into conversation with me about wanting a transition, and so we moved into a process quite quickly of meeting with the entire athletic departments,” Stoltzfus said. 

Administrators met with all the coaches over a few days, and listened to their concerns and what they saw as the needs of the department. 

“We’re not going to rush a search for a new [athletic director],” Stoltzfus said. “We have a lot of talent and breadth in our coaching staff and so when we have had a change in [athletic director] where we didn’t have sufficient time to run our search process, we have worked with coaches to put together interim leadership and I think that’s what we will do this time too.”

Even though the transition is a big one, Stoltzfus is confident in the abilities of the department to rise to the occasion. 

“We definitely need to move toward a new appointment of a permanent [athletic director], but we feel like we have a lot of talent on deck to put together the interim plan,” Stoltzfus said.

Overall, the college is balancing the urgency of a new school year, with the weight of the decision. 

“We’re working to get the next plan in place as rapidly as possible,” Stoltzfus said, “but we also want to be thoughtful about it, and we don’t feel like we’re in a crisis.” 

“We have good leadership within the coaching staff and so we just want to take the next week to really think that through and come up with the right interim plan, and then move forward to recruit the next director.”