A friend of Kathleen O’Rourke once told her to grow where she was planted, and she has expanded her Eastern-embedded roots to a national level. 

O’Rourke, a family and consumer sciences professor, was elected the chair of the board of directors for the Kappa Omicron Nu National Human Sciences Honor Society, which she first joined in 1993 when she was an undergraduate student at Eastern.

As chair, she will represent more than 140,000 members in more than 100 campus chapters throughout the nation. 

O’Rourke’s two-year term as chair will begin in January 2013, and she will work alongside the current chair, Deborah Tippett of Meredith College in North Carolina, until then. 

She was the president of Eastern’s chapter of Kappa Omicron Nu in 1995 when she was a graduate student at Eastern, and O’Rourke has served as co-adviser to the chapter for the past nine years.

Jayne Ozier, of Charleston, who was the chapter adviser when O’Rourke was a student, said when she first met O’Rourke, she thought she was an organized, systematic, dedicated person who believed in inspiring excellence in not only herself, but her peers as well. 

“She takes those same characteristics that I saw in her as an undergraduate student and applies them to her personal, professional and daily life,” Ozier said. “She is one of the people I feel proud of everyday.”

O’Rourke said she feels like she has come full circle as she started as a student being shaped by mentors like Ozier, and now she has transitioned to serving as a mentor to her students.

“I feel like I have the opportunity to give back to my student and try to model for them the importance and value of leadership and what it means to be a strong, ethical leader,” O’Rourke said. “Being a leader is surrounding yourself around great, capable individuals who also want to touch the lives of others.”

Ozier said besides educating and caring for others, O’Rourke also diminishes negative experiences and focuses on positive aspects of life.

O’Rourke was diagnosed with endometrial cancer, a type of uterine cancer, in January 2005, and Feb. 2 marked the seventh year of her being cancer-free. 

“I think surviving cancer helped her to proactively focus on her and other people’s positive traits, and she makes the best out of the good things in life,” Ozier said.

O’Rourke became an adviser to Colleges Against Cancer, the Eastern chapter of the American Cancer Society, in 2006.

“It was an important way for me to turn my experience into something positive to raise not only money, but awareness and education with others,” O’Rourke said. “Everyone has been touched by cancer in one form or another, so this has been an opportunity to reach out to the community to make a difference.”

O’Rourke said the Kappa Omicron Nu chapter has placed in the top-three fundraising teams in Relay for Life for the past few years, and they have raised funds from about $40,000 to $65,000. 

As chair of the national society, O’Rourke will lead the board of directors as they work through developing new initiatives, new goals and new plans for the coming year, she said.

The society hosts a national conference each year, and the 100th annual conference will occur in August at Michigan State University, where the society was founded.

O’Rourke recalled her first conference in 1995 and said she sat entranced as the society leaders spoke. 

“One after another they spoke, and their messages were so powerful relating to leadership and reflective human action, and it really inspired me to work hard on developing my leadership skills,” O’Rourke said. “I think that I have the opportunity to touch some lives who will sit in the same audience that I did and so that is why I get so excited working with the students.” 

Rachel Rodgers can be reached at 581-2812 or rjrodgers@eiu.edu.