Candice Storey Lee Is the First Woman Athletic Director at Vanderbilt University in Nashville

Candice Storey Lee has been named interim vice chancellor for athletics and university affairs and interim athletic director at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Lee is Vanderbilt’s first woman athletic director. She is also the first African American woman to head an athletics program at a university in the Southeastern Conference.

Dr. Lee has been serving as associate vice chancellor and deputy athletic director. She has been the department’s senior woman administrator for the athletics program since 2004.

As a captain and four-year letter winner for Vanderbilt’s women’s basketball team, Lee graduated with a bachelor’s degree in human and organizational development in 2000. She also received her master’s degree in counseling from Vanderbilt in 2002. Dr. Lee earned a doctorate in higher education administration from Vanderbilt in 2012.

In accepting the milestone appointment, Dr. Lee said, “as someone who can personally appreciate the value of Vanderbilt’s unique student-athlete experience, I can say without reservation that we are building on a storied legacy of excellence and achievement — in athletics and in academics. Vanderbilt is a special place, and this is a very exciting time — we are charting the future course of Vanderbilt Athletics. I am excited to work with our coaches, our staff and our student-athletes as we move forward.”