women's cross country Coaches

Entering his 23rd season of overseeing the St. Lawrence University Cross-Country and Track and Field programs, Mike Howard will again serve as the head coach of the women's cross country team in 2011.

Howard, the Director of the Saints Cross-Country and Track & Field Programs, also oversees the Men's and Women's Track program and serves the university as an Associate Athletic Director in charge of all scheduling and NCAA compliance duties within the department. He guided the team to the Atlantic Regional title in 2010 and his squad climbed as high as No. 2 in the USTFCCCA national rankings.

Howard, a 1987 St. Lawrence graduate, who stepped out of the role as the Head Cross-Country coach after the fall of 2000, has won numerous Coach of the Year Awards including five United States Track & Field and Cross-Country Coaches Association NCAA Division III Cross Country Regional Coach of the Year honors, most recently in 2010. He has won 18 conference "Coach of the Year" honors during his tenure with the Cross-Country and Track & Field programs as well as earning the same honor in New York State for both sports several times.

Kate Curran, a former Penn State cross country and track and field athlete, joined the Saint staff as head women's track and field coach and assistant cross country coach in the fall of 2008 and earned Liberty League Indoor Coach of the Year honors in her first season as a collegiate head coach. Her teams have had three top ten finishes in the Deb Vercauteren Program of the Year Award.

She is vice president of the New York State Collegiate Track Conference and is the Atlantic Regional representative to the NCAA Cross Country and Track and Field Committee.

Curran came to St. Lawrence from Susquehanna University where she served as an assistant coach. She holds a USATF Level 1 Coaching certification and was Gatorade Sport Camp Hydration Manager at the Penn State summer sports camps. She coached distance and mid-distance runners along with pole vaulters at Susquehanna and had two NCAA qualifiers in the vault in the 2006-07 season.

As a Penn State undergraduate, she was a member of the Nittany Lion cross country and track and field teams and was varsity cross country captain as a senior. She was a member of the 2004 Big Ten Champion women's track and field team and earned Penn State and Big Ten Scholar-Athlete awards and was the recipient of the Big Ten Sportsmanship Award in 2005.

Dr. Alison Del Rossi Papson will serve as the women's cross country team's Faculty/Staff Mentor for 2011-2012.

Dr. Del Rossi, an Associate Professor of Economics, began her three-year term as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in July 2010. The Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs supervises many faculty support programs including faculty travel, large and small research grants and adjunct and overload appointments. The Associate Dean supports faculty development opportunities and programs that promote innovative teaching practices and course design, improve student learning, and assist faculty in their professional, scholarly, and creative development at all stages in their careers. The Associate Dean also provides counsel to the Dean and works collaboratively in an office committed to efficiently serving the needs of the faculty and the academic program.

Alison graduated summa cum laude from the University of Delaware, with a double major in Economics and English, and she received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. Her teaching and research interests include law and economics, public finance and government behavior, risky choices, and the economics of higher education . At St. Lawrence since 1999, she especially values the enthusiastic and engaged students, the high level of engaged learning possible in small classes, and the opportunities for faculty to work one-on-one with students on research.