O'Rourke named to Distinguished Alumni

SALISBURY, MD ---Dr. Timothy G. O'Rourke, dean of Salisbury University's Fulton School of Liberal Arts, has been named to the 2002 Inaugural Class of Distinguished Alumni of the Tyrone Area School District in Tyrone, PA.

Over the course of an academic career spanning more than 25 years, O'Rourke has led major public programs designed to bring campus and community together and to promote greater citizen engagement in the political process. From 1995 to 2002, O'Rourke was the Teresa M. Fischer Professor of Citizenship Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis; he directed Kids Voting Missouri, a program in which nearly 68,000 Missouri elementary and secondary students went to official polling sites and voted alongside their parents in the 2000 presidential election.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Pittsburgh (1970) and holder of a Ph.D. in political science from Duke University (1977), O'Rourke has also held faculty appointments at Clemson University and the University of Virginia. From 1985-1992, he served as the executive director of the Virginia Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. O'Rourke has written extensively on political redistricting and has testified before both U.S. House and Senate committees on various voting rights issues.

The other distinguished alumni are Dr. Joseph L. Fink III, vice president of corporate relations and economic outreach at the University of Kentucky; Dr. Mark S. Mooseker, a world-renowned research scientist at Yale University; the Honorable Judge D. Brooks Smith, recently confirmed by the U.S. Senate for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; and Dr. Nick C. Leasure, an oncologist in Reading, PA.

Tyrone Schools' superintendent, Dr. William N. Miller, lauded the honorees: "These five exceptional alumni, who have made and continue to make significant contributions in their various fields of expertise, are recognized both in national and international circles. They all bring great honor to the Tyrone School District."