The Division I Management Council has appointed Jacqueline P. Blackett to chair the Division I Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet.

Blackett, a senior associate director of athletics at Columbia University-Barnard College, was selected during the Management Council's October 18 meeting in Indianapolis.

Blackett is the first African-American woman to chair one of Division I's four major governance groups (Board of Directors, Management Council, Championships/Competition Cabinet and AEC Cabinet).

She will succeed current Chair Alan Hauser, the faculty athletics representative at Appalachian State University, when his term expires in July 2005. She will be the cabinet's fourth chair, including Hauser, Rice University Faculty Athletics Representative Jim Castaneda and the late David Knight, who was faculty athletics representative at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Blackett is in her 15th year at Columbia, her 11th as an athletics administrator after four years as head coach of women's track and field and cross country. Now the senior associate director of athletics for compliance and student affairs, she serves as the campus liaison for Columbia student-athletes, working closely with the deans, registrars and various administrative offices. Blackett provides academic and personal counseling for Columbia's nearly 700 student-athletes.

A native of Barbados who grew up in Brooklyn, Blackett was a track and field student-athlete at the University of Rochester, where she earned her B.A. in psychology in 1981. She was co-captain and MVP of the Yellowjacket squads in 1979, 1980, and 1981, and set 20 school records in both sprint and field events.

Blackett began her coaching career at Rochester's Madison High School, and was named head women's track coach at Rochester Institute of Technology in 1982, moving to her alma mater the following year. In six years as head coach at Rochester, Blackett twice led the cross country squad to top-10 placings at the NCAA Division III championships, and her final indoor track team placed second in the nation in 1988-89.