Eric Sexton started his career at Wichita State in 1990. And now, 26 years later, he is resigning. 

From student-athlete to athletic director and vice president of Student Affairs, Sexton has impacted the university in many ways.  

On June 16, his official resignation letter was released to University President John Bardo, Vice President and Provost Tony Vizzini and the public. 

“Although I found out a few days before it was made public, [Sexton’s] resignation was unforeseen and unexpected,” Vizzini said. 

Sexton did not wish to comment any further about why he was leaving, but wrote in his letter that “it is time to pass the torch to others who can continue moving our university toward even higher levels of greatness.” 

Sexton worked in several positions for the university. He started as a student-athlete, on a golf scholarship, while working on a business degree. After receiving his degree in management in 1987, he went on to receive a master’s degree in public administration in 1992. He then left the university to pursue a doctorate at the University of Kansas, only to return to WSU for employment.

He started as the Director of Governmental Relations and the Board of Trustees to develop governmental relations strategies for the university. He also served on WSU’s Shocker Athletic Scholarship Organization’s board of directors. Along with those roles, Sexton dabbled in serving as the executive director of the WSU Board of Trustees and taught several political science courses. 

Sexton’s last two positions were the Athletic Director, which he served as for seven years, and then added as the Vice President of Student Affairs, which later became his sole job.

“Athletics is like a sub-culture of student affairs,” Vizzini said. “It was a fairly easy transition period for Sexton to go from being the athletic director to being in charge of student affairs. Of course there are always hiccups in the process, but he was able to take on the position well.”

The vice president of student affairs covers the non-academic portion of student lives. According to Vizzini, the position is intertwined amongst many other sub-categories.

“The VP is in charge of student engagement, recreations, housing, the code of conduct, TRIO, and so much more,” Vizzini said. “There are a lot of different portions, which is why they report directly to me.”

As interim VP of student affairs, Vizzini is currently working on forming a committee of representatives from SGA, faculty, professors, support staff and many others in order to put an ad out by mid-August so the search for a new vice president can continue. The committee’s membership will be finalized this week.

Vizzini hopes to have interviews started by September and a decision made by Nov. 1. After that, the goal is to have the new vice president begin by the start of 2017.

Although Sexton has not detailed his reason for leaving the university, he has closed his resignation by stating that “the university is in good hands and moving in a positive direction.”