Sandy (Contreras) Burns remembered feeling over the moon excited when Viterbo launched its first official women’s basketball team and she was going to be a member. “I was in seventh heaven,” she said.

When Scott Mihalovic was approached with the offer to be the first William Medland Chair of Educational Leadership, university officials didn’t know just how deep of an honor it would be to him.

Mihalovic has been at Viterbo for 10 years, overseeing the university’s educational leadership graduate and certificate programs. His connection with Viterbo, however, goes back much longer.

When William Medland came to Viterbo College in 1991, hired as the institution’s seventh president, he planned to stay for five years. By the time he stepped down as president in 2006, Viterbo had experienced 15 years of growth and transformation, going from a college undergoing financial difficulties to a financially secure, full-fledged university that had experienced 13 straight years of record enrollment.