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Sports

Rourke takes promotion as associate director of Stevenson Academic Center for Student-Athlete Development

By Jesse Dougherty

Brady Rourke has been promoted to associate director of the Stevenson Academic Center for Student-Athlete Development, SU Athletics announced Monday.

Rourke, who joined the staff in March as an assistant director, will help develop programing for student-athletes, according to a release on SU Athletics.

After graduating from Penn State in 2003, Rourke remained at his alma mater as a graduate assistant to the PSU football academic support program. After serving in that position from 2003-06, he moved to Arizona State for one year and acted as the academic coordinator for the football and men’s track and field programs. At ASU, he was also the career development coordinator for student-athletes.

Rourke then returned to PSU as the academic coordinator for football student-athletes. He was also the Director of the Athletic Director’s Leadership Institute. As the head of that program he managed athletes from all of the university’s 31 varsity sports.

In addition to those two positions at PSU, Rourke was the faculty advisor for PRIDE, a group of students against negligent fan behavior. He also was an instructor for student-athletes in their freshman seminar, mentoring them on how to balance sports and school.



Outside of his work at Penn State, Rourke became the chair of the N4A Model Practices Committee for the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics. The committee works to develop plans to better education support for athletes across all universities and colleges.

Rourke held those positions from his return to Penn State until his departure for Syracuse this past March. Now promoted, he will balance his work with the N4A committee and daily operations within the Stevenson Academic Center.

As the program’s associate director he will oversee day-to-day operations and work to ensure high quality academic support for Syracuse athletes. He will work closely with Associate Provost Dr. Andria Costello-Staniec and Athletics Director Dr. Daryl Gross.

Rourke will strive to strengthen the relationship between the Stevenson Academic Center and the individual colleges on campus. He will closely monitor NCAA eligibility rules, Annual-Percentage Rate (APR), and Graduation Success Rate (GSR) for SU student-athletes.

Rourke graduated from PSU with a bachelor’s degree in rehabilitation services education in 2003, and a master’s degree in higher education administration in 2006.





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