Bio

Dr. Karen M. Carty was named Director of Athletics at the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) on August 1, 2023. With her appointment, she became the first female athletics director in UVI’s 61-year history.

Dr. Carty is an award-winning, innovative communications and marketing professional with 20 years of experience in public relations, communications, sports marketing, sports administration, branding, social media management, content creation, event planning, fundraising, and leadership.

In her first year at UVI, she made an instant impact in the department. She immediately hired several key staff members to ensure the proper functioning of the department including, a full-time sports information director, a cross country and track and field head coach, a compliance officer, a graduate assistant for basketball, and a graduate assistant for athletics administration.

Dr. Carty worked diligently to engage the campus and local communities with a series of events including a meet and greet to introduce the athletics staff members and the UVI student-athletes to the community, partnering with Hulu to host an advance screening of Black Cake that drew over 200 attendees, and hosted the first-ever Buccaneer Madness event where the basketball teams were introduced to the public and played in scrimmages. Additionally, UVI’s 25 home basketball games (up from five games the year prior) drew a total of 8,000 fans to the Elridge Blake Sports and Fitness Center for the season.

Under Dr. Carty’s leadership, the Buccaneer student-athletes gave back to the community and excelled on the playing surfaces and in the classroom. The teams participated in several community service initiatives, including volunteering with Feeding Caribbean’s “Hoops Against Hunger” initiative to distribute food to unhoused and needy individuals in downtown Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas prior to Thanksgiving 2023.  

Men’s basketball graduate student Maurice Smith, Jr. received the Master of Business Administration Award at the 2024 Academic Achievement Awards and was the lone Buccaneer to receive athletic accolades from the GCAC, earning Second Team All-GCAC honors. Additionally, eight student-athletes were named to the GCAC Commissioner’s Honor Roll, which recognizes student-athletes for having cumulative grade point averages of 3.0 or higher.

UVI was also recognized as a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Champions of Character® Five-Star Institution for the 2023-24 academic year. The University earned bronze status after missing the mark to qualify for 2022-2023.

For her efforts and hard work during her inaugural year as an athletics director and at UVI, she was named the 2024 Gulf Coast Athletic Conference Athletics Director of the Year.

Dr. Carty spent two years as the Assistant Commissioner for Strategic Communications at the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), after joining the league office in July 2021. She served as the conference's primary media contact for football, men's basketball, and softball, as well as Commissioner requests and broadcast initiatives. She was also an executive producer with the MEAC Digital Network.

Upon Dr. Carty’s arrival at the MEAC, the league had recently experienced realignment in its membership. Her immediate focus was rebuilding and enhancing the MEAC’s brand using strategic storytelling. Subsequently, she worked with local, regional, and national media to tell the MEAC’s story and that of its eight member institutions.

In 2021, Dr. Carty spearheaded the creation of MEAC Countdown to Kickoff, presented by Coca-Cola, the conference’s football pregame show that aired on ESPN+. The first episode aired on October 16, 2021, from the campus of South Carolina State University and marked the first time an NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) conference produced its own pregame show. Season one of Countdown featured three episodes that highlighted the athletic and academic excellence of the MEAC institutions.

Season two of Countdown was bigger and better than its predecessor, featuring six episodes. It was recorded and broadcast from the newly built MEAC Digital Network studio housed in the conference office headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia. The show also featured correspondents on-site who provided gameday coverage from each MEAC football campus.

Dr. Carty also spent her time at the MEAC elevating the voices of women in sports by strategically placing them at the forefront of various media opportunities, including Nicole Hutchison and Shakira Martin as co-hosts for Countdown and Alexis Davis as a freelance writer. Additionally, in the spirit and celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the passage of Title IX, Dr. Carty worked diligently with ESPN to secure Tiffany Greene as the color analyst for the 2023 MEAC bowling Championship broadcast. The former MEAC bowler was the first female analyst to call a MEAC bowling championship match, bringing her bowling career full circle.

Prior to joining the MEAC, Dr. Carty spent two years at Bradley University as the Assistant Athletics Director for Marketing, Fan Engagement, and Diversity Initiatives. She was responsible for the marketing efforts for Bradley’s three ticketed women’s sports: volleyball, women’s basketball, and softball. Her other duties included serving as the sport administrator for softball, supervising the Director of Creative Productions and production staff, and overseeing the licensing program for athletics marks and branding with Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC).
 
In her first year at Bradley, Dr. Carty’s marketing efforts drew the largest crowd for a Bradley women's basketball home game (excluding doubleheaders with the men's team) with 3,151 fans, which was the third-largest crowd in program history (including doubleheaders).
 
During the summer of 2020, Dr. Carty was named the department’s liaison for diversity, inclusion, and community service programming and events – spearheading several virtual events, including voting and women’s empowerment symposiums. For the 2020-21 athletic year, she was also the advisor for Braves Council, Bradley’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). 
 
Additionally, she served on the Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics’ Senior Staff, the president’s Racial Equity Advisory Group, the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, and the Staff Engagement Team that was formed during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep Bradley staff members engaged during the transition to remote working. 

Dr. Carty joined Bradley from Grambling State University, where she served as Assistant Athletics Director for Media, Marketing, and Promotions from April 2017 to July 2019.

While at Grambling, Dr. Carty enhanced the overall branding, marketing, social media presence, and game-day experience for the athletics department. During the 2017-18 year, she oversaw the production of printed and digital marketing materials that won several awards, including one gold and two silver Sports Advertising Awards. The following year, she ensured that all 15 Tiger programs had printed promotional materials, which was a first in Grambling State history.

With the installation of a state-of-the-art video board at the Eddie G. Robinson Memorial Stadium and the construction of a brand-new mobile television production unit in 2017, Dr. Carty was able to create a more festive game environment for football and basketball home games. On-campus football game attendance during the 2017 season increased by over 25% from the previous season, while the average basketball attendance more than doubled from 2016-17 to 2017-18 (598 fpg vs. 1,340 fpg). The technological additions also helped to increase sponsorship opportunities, which led to Dr. Carty assisting in raising over $420,000 for the 2017-18 season.

Some of Dr. Carty’s additional responsibilities at Grambling included supervising the sports information staff, marketing graduate assistants, and undergraduate marketing interns, producing and executing all game scripts for football, basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, and volleyball, serving as the athletics department’s primary event planner, and working on the planning committees for the State Fair Classic and the prestigious Bayou Classic.  

Prior to her appointment at Grambling State, Dr. Carty worked in the South Carolina State athletics department from 2014-17. She served as the Director of Marketing while also handling media relations for volleyball, women’s soccer, women’s basketball, and softball.

Dr. Carty was responsible for all the marketing and promotional efforts for South Carolina State Athletics. Leading into the 2015 football season, she used a digital marketing campaign to increase average attendance by 5,000 fans per game, helping South Carolina State to lead the MEAC in average attendance (15,629) in 2015 and rank 10th in FCS.

She also worked to enhance the overall fan experience at South Carolina State athletic events by partnering closely with the game operations committee to ensure everything from the ticket-taking experience to the experiences at concession stands and during the game were enjoyable for the fans. For her efforts during the 2015-16 year, Dr. Carty was named the South Carolina State Staff Employee of the Year, in addition to being the Staff Employee of the Year for the Division of Athletics.

Dr. Carty’s other marketing responsibilities at South Carolina State included managing all of the athletic social media accounts, formulating game scripts for all home games, and serving as executive producer for the athletic department’s YouTube series, After the Whistle. Additionally, she served as the advisor for the Athletic Marketing Internship where she supervised 20 interns who helped to execute all marketing planning and activities. In the fall of 2015, the marketing interns, affectionately known as the “Money Team”, were featured in STATED Magazine, South Carolina State’s student magazine.

At South Carolina State, Dr. Carty served on the Athletics Hall of Fame, Homecoming, Sports Awards Banquet, and Former Athletes Golf Tournament planning committees.

Before going to Orangeburg, Dr. Carty spent three and a half years as the sports information director at Baltimore City Community College. She was responsible for handling the media relations efforts for BCCC’s six sports, including media guide production, gameday statistics, and record keeping. She also maintained the athletics website, www.bcccpanthers.com, and oversaw its redesign in the summer of 2013.

Prior to BCCC, Dr. Carty worked in the sports information office at Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Virginia from 2004-10, and was the assistant sports information director for the last three years of her tenure. She was responsible for the media relations and media guide production for the women’s basketball, women’s cross country, volleyball, softball, women’s tennis, and women’s indoor and outdoor track and field programs.

Dr. Carty graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in general business with an emphasis in marketing from Norfolk State in 2004. She was a member of the women's tennis team and was named to the 2004 MEAC Commissioner's All-Academic Team. She is also a lifetime member of Golden Key International Honour Society and Beta Gamma Sigma, an honor society for business majors.

The St. Croix, U.S.V.I. native earned her master's degree in sports management from the United States Sports Academy in Daphne, Ala. in 2009. She earned a Doctor of Education degree in higher education administration from Bradley University in May 2023.

Dr. Carty was a participant in the NCAA’s 2019 Leadership Education Series in Indianapolis, Indiana. She was also the 2021 recipient of the Rudy Keeling Postgraduate Scholarship, given annually by the Minority Opportunities Athletic Association (MOAA).

Dr. Carty currently holds membership in Women Leaders in Sports, the National Association of College Directors of Athletics (NACDA), MOAA, and the Black College Sports Information Directors Association (BCSIDA).