Mung Chiang has entered Northwestern's presidency during a critical time in collegiate athletics.
Northwestern men's basketball head coach Chris Collins put pressure on the administration in the spring, when he emphasized the importance of the university's next presidential hire.
The following offseason was a critical one for the 'Cats, coming off a brutal 15-19 (5-15 B1G) season in which Collins openly spoke about the lack of resources his program received. He stated that his team "didn't have enough" to compete with the other top teams in the Big Ten and was honest in saying Northwestern's next president would play a big role in determining the future of Wildcat basketball.
That new president is now here. The university hired Purdue's Mung Chiang to lead Northwestern in May, and as of July 1, Chiang is officially serving at the highest position in Evanston.
And according to athletic director Mark Jackson, Chiang is a hire that Collins and the other coaches at Northwestern will be pleased to work with.
"I had the opportunity to be at the Big Ten meetings a week previous [to Northwestern's lacrosse National Championship], where I was around all the Purdue people — their athletic director, their football coach, their men's basketball coach — and they hated to lose him," Jackson told Northwestern News Network SportsNight. "When you hear that coming from one of your Big Ten colleagues, all immersed in athletics, it's a really good sign we got the right guy."
Purdue President Mung Chiang and President of Indianapolis Motor Speedway Doug Boles do a lap around the track ahead of the 67th running of the Purdue Grand Prix, Saturday, April 20, 2024, at the Purdue Grand Prix Track in West Lafayette, Ind.Chiang spent over three years as the president of Purdue University, where he oversaw significant athletics success. The Boilermakers' men's basketball team reached the NCAA Championship Game in his first full season, then played in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight in each of the past two seasons.
Several other Purdue teams made the NCAA Tournament this past season, including volleyball, men's golf, women's golf, men's swimming and diving, women's swimming and diving, men's outdoor track and field, women's outdoor track and field, men's indoor track and field and wrestling.
Northwestern has had athletic success in its own right recently, although most of that has come from the school's non-revenue sports. Since 2021, the Wildcats have won three national championships in field hockey (2021, 2024, 2025), two national championships in women's lacrosse (2023, 2026) and one national championship in women's golf (2025).
In that same time, Northwestern has reached two bowl games in football and twice played in March Madness for men's basketball. But with the NIL and revenue-sharing arms race in college sports rapidly ramping up, the investment that Chiang decides to make in athletics will be critical for Northwestern's future.
