UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State today announced the appointment of Andrea Wickerham as assistant athletic director – human resources. She brings nearly 30 years of higher education and private sector experience to Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics.
Wickerham will oversee all human resources operations for the Nittany Lions’ athletic staff of more than 325 and work closely with the University’s Office of Human Resources. Her duties will include providing direction for all human resources functions, including: employee recruitment and retention, performance management, organizational efficiency and employee/labor relations.
From Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Wickerham comes to Penn State after serving 14 years, the last seven as vice president, at the National Center for Drug Free Sport Inc. in Kansas City, Missouri. Wickerham also has 14 years of athletic administration and coaching experience at several institutions, including Iowa, Michigan and Luther College, where she was the director of athletics. She will begin her duties at Penn State on Aug. 31.
“We are very excited to have Andrea join our team,” said Lynn Holleran, senior associate athletic director. “She brings a wealth of experience in human resources, organizational management and intercollegiate athletics. Andrea’s leadership experiences in athletics and the private sector will be invaluable for the department, and we are thrilled to have her at Penn State.”
“I would like to thank Lynn Holleran and the search committee for their work and putting their trust in me to lead the ICA Human Resources department,” Wickerham said. “I am honored to join the well-respected leadership teams within ICA and the University’s Office of Human Resources. Our goal is to provide a best-in-class working environment that enables every employee to do their best work every day. I am very much looking forward to building collaborative relationships within ICA and with my HR colleagues throughout campus and the State College community.”
Wickerham earned her juris doctor from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law and was a labor and employment law attorney at Husch & Eppenberger LLC in Kansas City before joining The National Center for Drug Free Sport Inc. She served for nearly seven years as the legal relations and policy director, which included directing the administrative operations for the NCAA drug testing and drug education programs, working with more than 200 institutions on drug prevention initiatives and policy implementation.
A graduate of Ursinus (Pennsylvania) College, Wickerham was then promoted to vice president. Over the next seven years, she supervised the company’s human resources, performance management and benefits programs, facilitated company-wide strategic planning and budget management, negotiated selected contracts and had oversight of risk management, marketing and information technology.
Wickerham also spent two years as an adjunct faculty member teaching higher education law at the University of Kansas.
After graduating with a degree in history from Ursinus, Wickerham was the head field hockey and softball coach at Mount St. Mary’s (Maryland). She was a graduate assistant field hockey coach at the University of Iowa for two years while earning her master’s degree in physical education. Wickerham then served as an assistant women’s basketball coach at Eastern Michigan University before serving in a similar capacity at the University of Michigan for two years.
Wickerham then moved into athletics administration for the next eight years, first serving as assistant athletic director and senior woman administrator at Central Connecticut State University. She then was an assistant athletic director at Harvard University before being named athletic director at Luther College in Iowa, where she managed all aspects of the school’s 19-sport NCAA Division III program for two years before embarking on a law degree.
She served as chairwoman of the University of Missouri-Kansas City's Chancellor’s Advisory Board to the Women’s Center and on the Dean’s Advisory Board to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa.
Wickerham is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the Missouri Bar Association and the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators. She was a member of the UMKC’s Division I Athletic Certification Committee and is a former honoree of the Kansas City Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business.