Jen Baker on Lifelong Leadership Skills
b'Jen Baker is just the fifth Director of Athletics and Recreation at Johns Hopkins since 1950 and succeeded Alanna W. Shanahan, who served in the position since July 2016.\\xa0\\nBaker has been an integral member of the department\\u2019s senior-leadership team since her arrival at Homewood.\\xa0 She has overseen the day-to-day operation of the Department of Athletics with oversight in the planning, development and management of all fiscal and administrative operations.\\xa0 As such, she has directed all revenue-generating initiatives and short and long-term budget planning for Johns Hopkins\\u2019 highly successful 24-sport varsity athletic program.\\nIn addition, Baker has served as the sport administrator for the Blue Jay women\\u2019s lacrosse, football, men\\u2019s and women\\u2019s basketball and women\\u2019s soccer programs while also providing administrative support for men\\u2019s lacrosse.\\xa0 She led the search to fill Johns Hopkins\\u2019 head football coaching position in early 2019 and has been actively involved in the hiring of two other head coaches, several assistant coaches and a number of staff members in athletics and recreation.\\nAmong her many key initiatives at Johns Hopkins has been the launching of a unique leadership development program for Johns Hopkins student athletes (Blue Jays LEAD).\\xa0 The Blue Jays LEAD program made its debut in 2017-18 with a mission of empowering student-athletes to actualize the leader within and inspire action in their communities at Johns Hopkins and beyond. \\xa0\\nBaker inherits a program that recently completed perhaps the greatest athletic year in school history.\\xa0 Johns Hopkins placed second in the 2018-19 Learfield IMG College Directors\\u2019 Cup Standings, claimed 11 conference championships, produced 10 CoSIDA/Google Cloud Academic All-Americans and had 45 student-athletes earn All-America honors.\\xa0 The runner-up finish in the Directors\\u2019 Cup standings matched the best finish in school history and 20 of Johns Hopkins\\u2019 24 teams competed in the NCAA Tournament or Championship.\\nBaker came to Johns Hopkins from Under Armour, where she served as a Senior Manager of Corporate Real Estate, Facilities and Operations.\\xa0 She was responsible for the daily operation of all UA facilities at its nearby Port Covington headquarters and provided support to all UA offices outside of Baltimore.\\xa0 That support included new facility activation, vendor relationships and energy management.\\xa0 One of Baker\\u2019s key initiatives at UA was the activation of the company\\u2019s newest offices in San Francisco and Portland.\\nPrior to her time at Under Armour, Baker spent three years at Cornell University, where she ascended to the position of Associate Director of Athletics for Facilities and played an integral role in the oversight of all internal department operations as a member of the senior leadership team.\\xa0 She was responsible for all athletic facilities, and integral in the budgeting, planning and programming of all related projects.\\nDuring her time at Cornell, Baker also designed and developed the Big Red Leadership Institute (BRLI), a program for more than 500 student-athletes across all 37 varsity athletic teams at the school.\\xa0 The BRLI delivered key leadership concepts set in the athletics context with a mission of building confident leaders and followers who provided immediate impact to their teams and communities.\\nWith the BRLI, Baker implemented five separate, but complementary, proprietary developmental curricula for five distinct student cohorts (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, non-captain seniors and captains).\\xa0 Each group moved through a unique curriculum designed specifically for their class year and corresponding level of influence and responsibility.\\nBaker is a co-founder of Athletics Leadership Consulting (ALC), whose mission is to make leadership development accessible to all athletes, coaches and organizational support staff.\\xa0 ALC leverages athletics as a tool for leadership education as it designs and delivers original content that allows athletes to de'