PITTSBURG, Kan. – Late Friday evening, Pittsburg State University President Thomas Newsom announced that PSU Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Jim Johnson had been selected as executive vice president for engagement and executive affairs, a new position at PSU that reports directly to Newsom, and is charged with helping guide the university’s new strategic plan.

By early Monday morning, Johnson was already at work in his new job.

Noting that universities are not known for moving so quickly, Newsom said in interviews Monday that with the right people already in place for both Intercollegiate Athletics and the university, there was no reason to delay the decision.

“Why wait?” he asked, Monday.

Johnson’s promotion follows closely on the heels of the roll-out of the university’s new strategic plan, dubbed Access PITT State, which will occupy a large part of Johnson’s time.

In addition to growing the university’s enrollment by 700 students over the next five years, Access PITT State also anticipates “leaner operations that are laser focused on the most impactful support systems and coursework; a focus on programs with high student and industry demand; and activities that help the university recruit, retain, and prepare students for a constantly evolving workforce.”

Implementing the new strategic plan is going to require a good deal of collaboration across campus among faculty, staff, offices, and departments.

“We simply will not meet our goal and sustain our university if we don’t, share our expertise across the organization, examine what works best, replicate impactful practices across the institution, eliminate outdated and low-return-on-investment activities, standardize what we can to reduce barriers, and retain good employees who are in the right position to achieve the most,” Newsom said.

Newsom said Monday that while PSU operates well and is very strategic and intentional, “we do it oftentimes in silos.

“While we have vice presidents and deans and department chairs who are quite frankly amazing champions for their specific functions on our campus and the things that they do to make sure that our students are successful, that we don’t really have a person that I can go to, …in terms of making sure that all of those different functions, all those different areas, all of our different colleges are really working collaboratively and have someone who can facilitate collaboration across our university.”

Johnson said Monday that the 16 years he has spent as AD and his previous administrative experience in Intercollegiate Athletics have prepared him for his new role.

“We talk a lot in Athletics about how everything we do is transferrable skills,” Johnson said. “Not to take away from other departments or other leadership roles on any college campus. We’re bankers, we’re human resource managers, we’re event planners, we’re project managers. We get to touch every aspect of the university. In over 16 years, there’s probably no department on this campus that I haven’t worked with in some form or fashion… That’s one thing that I realized early on in this career was that we get to play games and do all those fun things, but it’s really about developing skills and relationships. This is what we’ve agreed this position is all about is continuing to foster and grow our relationships with our stakeholders – that’s not just donors, (it’s) a lot of different people. That’s probably been 60 percent of my job since I got here, was relationships with those people.”

Johnson and Newsom both said, Monday, that people shouldn’t be scared when they see the word ‘efficiencies’ in discussions of the strategic plan.

“Efficiency doesn’t mean cutting back on what you’re doing or cutting back on people or resources,” Johnson said. “Efficiency is just doing what you’re doing and doing it better. We’ve done a lot of that in Athletics over the years with how we fund our programs. We’ve made several changes in how we did that.”

“When I hear the word ‘efficiencies,’ I don’t even think about cuts, or downsizing,” Newsom said. “I think about efficiencies that capture our strengths and then basically multiply those so we can take advantage of those strengths and continue to grow even more than we have been.”

Newsom added that the roll-out of the strategic plan and the new role for Johnson were efforts designed to take advantage of Pitt State’s current momentum.

“I’ve always believed that you succeed through growth,” Newsom said. “One of the reasons why I was attracted to Pittsburg State from Southeast Oklahoma State University is that Pittsburg state has a momentum that no other regional university has. In terms of some things that happened over the past 3-5 years with new programs, some shifting of the growth curve. We’ve seen student growth over the last few semesters as we’ve kind of rebounded and gotten back to our pre-covid numbers. We’ve seen trends like the fact that our freshman application pool for this fall is up 35 percent from where it was last fall. We are seeing spring enrollment is up about 2.5 to 3 percent; retention is up. We have a circumstance here at Pittsburg State where we have momentum that is unlike any other regional university. So, this move will help us continue to capture that momentum and continue that momentum.”

It will also, Johnson quipped, make it possible for him to sit on the sidelines with his former boss and yell at the referees.

Johnson as AD

Jim Johnson was twice named NACDA Athletics Director of the Year. He served more than 19 years in the NCAA governance structure, including two years as chair of the NCAA Division 2 Management Council and member of the NCAA Board of Governors, and as president of the D2 Athletic Directors Association in 2018-19. 

Under his guidance, Pitt State has won 56 MIAA championships, made 22 NCAA tournament appearances, won five NCAA regional championships, and won 12 NCAA national championships. Following the 2024-25 academic year, Pitt State claimed the university’s fourth consecutive, and fifth overall, MIAA Commissioner’s Cup honoring the conference’s top overall program. That year also culminated in a seventh place finish in the NACDA/Learfield Directors Cup — the school’s highest all-time finish. 

Last calendar year, every sport made it to post-season competition, marking it as one of the most successful years in Pitt State athletic history. 

During his tenure, Johnson has guided the completion of the Plaster Center, a complete overhaul of the Weede building including John Lance Arena, renovations to Carnie Smith Stadium and the Gene Bicknell Sports Complex, the construction of the Pitt State Soccer Pitch, and the construction of the new outdoor track facility.  

He also served as commissioner of the MIAA from 2007-2010, handling the administration of conference championships and providing leadership in marketing and promotions, broadcasting, rules compliance, strategic planning, officiating and media relations, and oversight and management of financial resources totaling more than $1 million.