Kathleen Worthington Wilson, a top-level administrator with more than 20 years of experience in higher education administration, has been named the Associate Athletics Director for Student Services at Cleveland State as announced by Director of Athletics Mike Thomas on Friday. She will begin her duties on August 14.

Worthington comes to CSU after serving the last six years as the Special Assistant to the Dean and Associate Provost at the University of Maryland, College Park, Graduate School. Prior to that, she spent 12 years in the Maryland Department of Athletics, serving as an Associate Athletics Director (1999-02), a Senior Associate Athletic Director/Senior Woman Administrator (2002-07) and an Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director (2007-11).

"I'm excited to have Kathy join our program and the Cleveland State community," Thomas said. "She will lead our student services division and continue the great success that our academic unit consistently demonstrates. Kathy brings extensive knowledge and experience in higher education and will play a significant role as we continue to provide our student-athletes with an outstanding experience in the classroom, in competition and in the community."

In her six years with the Maryland Graduate School, Worthington partnered with the Dean to manage the daily operations of an office which served 11,000 graduate students, 4,000 graduate faculty, 200 masters and doctoral programs and 20 full-time staff, while spearheading all major special events for the Graduate School.

During her tenure with Maryland athletics, Worthington supervised the academic support unit, overseeing an academic staff that served 700 student-athletes. Under her supervision, the student-athlete graduation rate increased to an all-time high of 80-percent.

A member of the senior management team, she led the department's internal affairs, supervising seven direct reports. The department's Title IX officer, Worthington successfully led Maryland's 10-year NCAA Certification review and was part of a program that was selected by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation's top-20 athletic programs in the areas of NCAA compliance, Title IX, competitiveness and graduation rate.

Worthington also has experience as an Assistant Athletics Director (1995-97) and Associate Athletics Director (1997-99) at Morehead State where she was responsible for the oversight of all financial and business operations, personnel, compliance, facilities, sports medicine and sport supervision.

Worthington is a 1985 graduate of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland and earned her bachelor's degree in communications. She attained a Master's of Arts in public relations from Syracuse in 1987 and her Master's of Science in Sport Management from Wisconsin-Lacrosse in 1995.