Matthew Taiman arrived at the harbor campus in the Spring of 2024. Taiman is described as accountable, consistent, dependable, motivated, organized, and proactive. His preferred leadership style is transformational and servant-oriented, as he pulls great fulfillment from his work. The goal within his leadership style is to create a goal-oriented and cohesive environment established through clear and open communication, without overlooking the importance of cultivating honesty, adaptability, and a growth mindset for those he leads and works with. His love for being part of a team and collaborating with others has excited his career path towards collegiate athletics, where he is not complacent but instead welcomes his association to a multitude of personnel (i.e. student-athletes, coaches, administrators, etc.) in which all the descriptors above only increase his passion for sports and continuing his work with UMass Boston (UMB).
Taiman joined UMB after four years at Vanderbilt University where he served as the Assistant Director of Student Services. Taiman provided individualized support to 45 football student-athletes in academics and student-athlete services. He also evaluated the academic support needs of football student-athletes through weekly one-on-one academic meetings, tracking grades, and assisting with course selection and class registration. Before being promoted to Assistant Director, Taiman served as a Student Services Coordinator, providing individualized support to 35 football student-athletes and mentoring at-risk student-athletes by emphasizing and promoting self-help skills.
During Taiman’s journey he made stops across the east coast from Massachusetts down to Virginia to North Carolina. Amid this journey, he spent over a year at North Carolina State University working as the Assistant Academic Coordinator for the Division I program. His duties and responsibilities mainly revolved around football and swimming student-athletes by means of one-on-one meetings consisting of course selection or registration and recording their grades or academic standing. Furthermore, Taiman managed the attendance, engagement and participation of more than 300 tutoring or mentoring sessions with either daily check-ins or weekly staff meetings to follow up on reports. Also, he taught university courses where the goal was to mentor and support first-year student-athletes and their transition to college academics and athletics.
Taiman began his professional career at Springfield College as a Graduate Assistant with the men’s basketball team where he partook in recruiting endeavors, strategized around player development and efficient usage of practices. In this role, he also had a hand in scheduling plus live-event (game) and operations managing.
His role as the Assistant Director of Athletics for Compliance and Student Athlete Development at UMB will be to oversee NCAA compliance for our 19 varsity sports programs, student-athletes, coaches, athletics staff, and all appropriate University personnel. He will ensure that our athletic programs comply with NCAA rules governing recruiting, amateurism, NIL (Name Image and Likeness), and awards and benefits. He will also develop and conduct NCAA rules education sessions for coaches, administrators, and student-athletes to encourage broad-based knowledge of NCAA rules and regulations.
The Taiman File
2024-Present: Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance and Student-Athlete Development, UMass Boston
2022-2024: Assistant Director of Student Services - Football, Vanderbilt University
2020-2022: Student Services Coordinator - Football, Vanderbilt University
2019-2020: Assistant Academic Coordinator, North Carolina State University
2018-2019: Assistant Director of Athletic Academic Services, Virginia Military Institute
2017-2018: Men's Basketball Graduate Assistant Coach, Springfield College
2017 Summer: Athletics Intern - Graduate Field Experience, Central Connecticut State University
2016 Fall - 2018 Summer: Student Support Specialist Service Member, AmeriCorps VISTA (Springfield, MA)
Bachelor's: Health, Movement and Sport Studies, Springfield College (2016)
Master's: Education in Athletic Administration, Springfield College (2018)
Business Administration, Oklahoma State University (2024)
