Kate Costanzo, head women's basketball coach and senior woman administrator at Allegheny, along with Timothy Bussey, assistant director for the office of diversity, equity and inclusion at Kenyon, were finalists for the inaugural NCAA Division III LGBTQ Administrator/Coach/Staff of the Year Award, presented at the Division III LGBTQ and Allies Reception and Ceremony on Wednesday, Jan. 13.

The prestigious award is in its inaugural year and honors the service, leadership and promotion of LGBTQ inclusion by an LGBTQ athletics administrator, coach or staff member in Division III. It is one of a new trio of awards created in support of the NCAA's OneTeam initiative, alongside awards for the LGBTQ Student-Athlete of the Year and the OneTeam Athletics Department of the Year.

In addition to her primary roles, Costanzo added the responsibility of athletics diversity and inclusion designee (ADID) in 2020, a newly created role across all NCAA Divisions. The designee serves as the point of contact between the NCAA national office and campus when information around inclusion programs, emerging diversity issues and other related equity initiatives needs to be shared.

Now in her 14th season at Allegheny, Costanzo has served as the co-chair of the Pride Alliance, the College's faculty and staff LGBTQ+ group. On January 22, 2020, Allegheny celebrated its first athletics LGBTQ+ Pride Night at a women's and men's basketball doubleheader against Oberlin, thanks to Costanzo's collaboration with the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access & Social Justice (IDEAS) Center on campus, and featured t-shirts with an Allegheny Pride logo distributed to students and fans. Money raised during the event was donated to The Trevor Project, the nation's leading organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention to LGBTQ young people under 25. This past spring, she facilitated NCAA OneTeam training for the department's staff and was scheduled to attend the NCAA Equity & Inclusion Forum, both of which were delayed due to COVID-19.

At Kenyon, Timothy is responsible for implementing programming, fostering educational initiatives, and providing support for the college’s LGBTQ+ students. As a part of this role, they are the chair of the LGBTQ+ Advisory Committee and the coordinator of the Student LGBTQ+ Diversity Fund. They also supervise the programming of both Unity House and the Crozier Center for Women, while simultaneously serving as the advisor for a number of student groups.

In addition to this, they are an active member of the advisory board for the women’s and gender studies program at Kenyon, and in the fall 2019 term, they served as a visiting assistant professor of women’s and gender studies, where they taught the first iteration of WGS 121: Intro to Queer Studies. Since summer 2019, Timothy has also served as a facilitator for the NCAA’s Division III LGBTQ OneTeam Training Program. As one of less than 60 people across the country who is certified to deliver this program, they often travel to other Division III institutions to train coaches and administrators about LGBTQ+ inclusion and equity in college athletics.