Baker promoted to Johns Hopkins AD; Shanahan named vice provost
If Jennifer Baker is being honest, becoming the athletic director of a distinguished college program such as the one at Johns Hopkins was Plan B. It’s the one rare subject on which she and her promoted predecessor, Vice Provost Alanna W. Shanahan, disagree.
Growing up in Lutherville and later Monkton, Baker had envisioned becoming a fighter pilot for the Navy. After graduating from Hereford High and the Naval Academy, she flew planes for the military branch for three years before getting medically disqualified. Devastated, she began to coach high school lacrosse in Virginia Beach for 10 years, rediscovering her passion for athletics.
“It is that thing that is as meaningful as the pursuit of flying was, and it feels very similar in terms of there’s a kind of fun camaraderie and a lot of competitive spirit,” she said Tuesday after getting promoted from senior associate athletic director. “You’re serving something more than yourself. So I never imagined it because I didn’t even know it could exist, but once I found out that it did exist, it really was instantaneous for me that it was the path I had been seeking.”
But Shanahan said Baker is primed to be an athletic director.
“I think while she has tested other pieces and other interests, she was always likely to do this kind of work, but just wasn’t maybe prepared to accept it,” she said. “Her ability to be successful in the higher ed context and her ability to relate to students and understand what they need to succeed and what they need to develop as leaders, she’s just unbelievably capable.”
Baker, 43, succeeds Shanahan, 44, who had been hired June 6, 2016, to replace Tom Calder. Shanahan, a native of Wallingford, Pa., and a former sports administrator at the University of Pennsylvania, has been promoted to vice provost for student affairs. Both Baker and Shanahan will move to their new positions on Monday.
Baker, who will become the school’s fifth athletic director since 1950, joined the Blue Jays in September 2017 after serving as a senior manager of corporate real estate, facilities and operations at Under Armour.