Dawn Chaney(on the right). Image Credit: Texas Woman’s University
As reported by TWU in 2022, Chaney spent 17 years teaching in higher education, working at institutions including Texas A&I University, the State University of New York, the University of Delaware and Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. Her professional life eventually moved beyond sport.
What will the new athletics complex provide
In 2026, she committed $10 million towards a new athletics complex that will carry her name. The approximately $30 million facility is expected to break ground in 2027, giving the university a new space designed around the needs of its growing athletics programme. The university’s July 2026 announcement also notes that she was a three-sport athlete during the 1960s, making her later support for athletics closely connected to her own experience as a student. Texas Woman’s University will build a $30 million athletics complex, which has been supplemented by a $10 million donation. Image Credit: Connor Pittman/Community Impact Chaney’s work in property development grew from a single-family property she acquired when she started Chaney Properties in 1980, according to the university’s scholarship profile. The university says its varsity sports programme expanded from 5 sports to 9 over six years, while the number of student-athletes more than doubled.
She is a three-time alumna of the university and earned degrees connected with kinesiology, according to TWU’s Pioneer Scholarship System. Dawn Chaney’s connection with Texas Woman’s University began as a student-athlete in the 1960s and has now grown into one of the university’s largest philanthropic legacies. A three-sport competitor during her time at TWU, Chaney later built a career in higher education and real estate. Chaney’s relationship with Texas Woman’s University stretches across three degrees and several decades. The business later expanded into single-family, multi-family, commercial, industrial and warehouse properties, with a particular focus on historic properties around downtown Greensboro. The planned facility is designed to address practical pressures created by the growth of TWU athletics. That growth has placed greater demand on existing training and support spaces.
