Burnett hired by Athletics

Rosemarie Burnett was hired as Penn's assistant athletics director. Academics and athletics -- a healthy combination for any well-rounded college athlete. It is this balanced diet that Rosemarie Burnett, the new Penn assistant director of athletics, hopes to feed to each and every Quaker student-athlete. Burnett's hiring filled the void left by Robert Koonce, who left Penn this summer to take an administrative job in the athletic department at Tulane University in New Orleans, and is the culmination of a three-month search to fill the position. With an undergraduate degree from Princeton and graduate degrees from Penn and Temple, Burnett expects her education and years of experience to serve her well in her new job. "I have the Ivy League experience? and I also have a combination of the athletics and the academics that I've been interested in," Burnett said. "This position was a way of combining a lot of those things." In her new position, Burnett expects to be quite busy. Her job encompasses a host of responsibilities, including coordinating athletes' financial aid packages, providing them with tutoring support, helping them fulfill academic requirements and meeting prospective Penn student-athletes during the recruiting process. Her active role in recruiting will allow many incoming student-athletes to be well acquainted with Burnett before they take to the field as Quakers. "They learn about my position at the pre-freshman stage," Burnett said, adding that she will meet with the "incoming students, and possibly their families, to tell them about various services available to them." After watching a prospective student play, a Penn coach might approach Burnett with questions like, "What do you think? Is this a student who would be accepted to the University? How can we help with this student?" In her role as an academic coordinator, Burnett will be working with the tutoring center on campus, arranging study hall hours, "guiding them with academic advisers, coordinating course selection and just making sure that they're aware of certain things as far as requirements for their program." However, as Burnett pointed out, not every student who visits her office is in dire need of help. "This is not just an office for problems. There are a lot of positive things that come from this office," explained Burnett, citing as examples the distribution of laptop computers to "students who are away for competition" and the career network of alumni. Burnett's dual role as both academic and athletic advisor is in line with her previous work, as she brings more than 10 years of experience to Penn. Most recently, Burnett served as the director of admissions at Adelphi University in New York, where she worked for five years, handling "all aspects of admissions." In the athletic field, Burnett spent time as the director of operations for the Pro-Am division of the National Basketball Association. She worked in the organization's national headquarters and organized winter and summer basketball leagues for amateur players across the country. "We're pleased that someone with such a diverse and extensive background is taking on this major responsibility," Penn Athletic Director Steve Bilsky said.