UREC Alumni Spotlight: Rachael Finley

Rachael Finley (M ’10) started her campus recreation career the first month of her undergraduate studies at Central Michigan University. Not only was she studying recreation, she joined the club volleyball team, started working in the fitness center, then camps, group exercise, intramural sports, and eventually became a building supervisor.

After an internship in Oregon with the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association, Finley came to JMU to study Adult Education and Human Resource Development, and after a year, transitioned into the first cohort of the Campus Recreation concentration in the Sports and Recreation Leadership graduate program as she was studying campus recreation student employment for her thesis. During that time, she worked as a UREC Graduate Assistant with Sports Clubs and also Adventure. 

Gaining experience after graduate school at Green Mountain College, Princeton, and Loyola, Finley eventually found her way to York College in Pennsylvania, home to about 4,100 students. She now serves as York’s Director of Campus Recreation, where she oversees all things campus recreation, with the help of one full-time and one part-time assistant. She oversees intramurals, the climbing wall, fitness center, group exercise, and sport clubs. She is currently working on a campus recreation master plan and vision. "The things I learned from the campus recreation masters’ program…I use that stuff every day,” Finley said. “Being a student in the program along with being a GA at UREC, I got to apply and practice all of the things that I was learning in the classroom. I would not be the professional that I am without that masters’ program.”

Her biggest takeaway from her time at JMU was the student employment experience and she is working to create a similar culture at York College Recreation. York’s recreation center is the largest campus employer and has over 100 student employees.

“We have completely changed the culture of our student employment since I have been here,” Finley said. “Creating an experience in which we hold them accountable, make them feel cared about and dedicating time to their development, has made a significant impact on the culture shift.”

Learn more about UREC Graduate Assistantships and the Campus Recreation concentration in the Sports and Recreation Leadership Graduate program.

Written by Natalie Lavery ('19), Kaitlin Pomerleau, and Kristin Gibson

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