From her first Red Cross volunteer shift at Nazareth to responding to 9/11 and hospice bedsides, Kathleen Rourke ’75 has spent decades showing up for others 

Kathleen Rourke smiling in a red American Red Cross jacket, holding a green cap, in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary and autumn foliage.
Kathleen Rourke ’75 poses in the American Red Cross jacket she wore while responding to the 9/11 attacks in Manhattan and to a plane crash in Queens.

Standing in a cemetery in Lower Manhattan, Kathleen Rourke ’75 gazed at the floodlit scene of devastation before her. The twin towers, once a centerpiece of the iconic New York City skyline, were reduced to a massive pile of rubble. Behind her, the “miracle church” of St. Paul’s Chapel, which avoided any damage during the towers’ collapse and became a refuge site for first responders, was overflowing with messages of hope. The inside walls were almost completely covered in cards, crafts, and banners sent from people across the country, offering words of support and inspiration.

That defining moment in November 2001, while deployed with the American Red Cross for disaster response following the September 11 attacks, reflected a dedication to service that Rourke had begun decades earlier as an undergraduate at Nazareth. 

“The response behind me counters the evil in front of me,” reflected Rourke, interviewed in September 2026, days after the 25th anniversary of the tragedy. “I am on the side of the helpers.”

Kathleen smiling for a selfie with four other women celebrating their 50th reunion.
Kathleen Rourke (center) with Nazareth classmates at their 50th reunion in 2025, left to right: Mary Battista ’75; Katherine Herman ’75, ’79G; Kathleen Rourke ’75; Valerie Rheude ’75; and Gail Oczkowski Garrett ’75.

Roots of compassion 

Growing up primarily outside Syracuse, New York, Rourke was drawn to Nazareth from the moment she visited campus with her parents. Though adapting to life away from home proved challenging during her freshman year, campus mentors like Sister Stella Regina, along with many new and supportive friends, including her roommate, helped her find her footing. Decades later, Rourke is still in touch with those friends.

Kathleen posing for a yearbook photo standing in the grass with trees behind her dressed in a plaid blazer and pants.
Kathleen Rourke in Nazareth’s 1975 yearbook.

Rourke majored in English and soon became deeply involved in student life, where Nazareth’s core emphasis on community and human connection took root in her. During a student retreat, Rourke volunteered to wash dishes, discovering the unexpected sense of joy that comes from serving others. Not long after, a friend recruited her to drive fellow students to a local hospital for a Red Cross volunteer initiative — an introduction that sparked a lifelong commitment to that organization.

Just as impactful were the small, human interactions with campus leadership. Rourke vividly recalls walking through a blizzard past the library when Sister Helen Daniel Malone, SSJ, the fifth president of Nazareth, stopped to greet her by name and ask how she was doing. Then, about five years after Rourke graduated, Sister Marion Hocter, SSJ, former vice president for academic affairs and provost and professor emerita of English, recognized her at an event and recalled specific students Rourke had recommended to the college.

“Nazareth stands out because they saw me for what I was and accepted me,” Rourke said. “That really impressed upon me the importance of acknowledging every individual we meet as someone of value.”

A large group of classmates with their hands in the air smiling at their reunion holding up 1975 balloons
Kathleen Rourke ’75 (in the green jacket, between the classmates holding the numbers 1 and 9) and her classmates at their reunion in 2025. “It was hard to believe it had been 50 years,” she says.

Decades on the front lines of disaster

After graduating from Nazareth, earning a master’s degree from The Catholic University of America, and teaching high school English for five years, Rourke built a career as an editor at Cornell Law School. It was during her time at Cornell that her devotion to volunteerism expanded. In the late 1990s, after witnessing the devastating impact of a severe Labor Day windstorm in Syracuse, she formally joined the Red Cross Disaster Action Team. Responding to emergency calls at all hours of the day and night, she supported families in the immediate aftermath of house fires, floods, and localized tragedies, receiving numerous awards for her work.

When 9/11 struck, Rourke initially stepped up to help manage her local Red Cross office while maintaining her responsibilities at Cornell. After deploying directly to New York City two months later, she began working at Ground Zero but was soon diverted to assist in the response effort following the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in Queens.

Throughout those intense emergency efforts, Rourke spent time supporting first responders at respite centers like the one at St. Paul’s. She witnessed how small gestures provided immense comfort, recalling a moment when she spoke to a responder drinking coffee who looked at a child's drawing on a placemat and said, “The fact that a kid thought of me and drew this picture makes a world of difference for what I'm doing.”

A calling to ministry and hospice care

A subsequent personal health crisis brought a deeper spiritual shift. After undergoing major surgery, Rourke reflected on mortality, faith, and transition, ultimately feeling called toward spiritual ministry. After retiring from Cornell, she used a retirement incentive to earn a master’s degree in pastoral studies from St. Bernard's School of Theology and Ministry.

Today, Rourke serves as a disaster spiritual care provider for the Red Cross and works as a hospice chaplain, walking alongside individuals and families navigating grief and end-of-life transitions. Because she serves people from many different backgrounds and faiths, her approach centers on active listening, meeting people wherever they are on their spiritual journey, and finding whatever brings them comfort. As Rourke explained, “I give them a safe space to ask the difficult questions about life, death, and grief that society normally shies away from.”

For one patient whose children insisted she have a chaplain when all she wanted was to “become one with the trees,” Rourke had a meaningful conversation with the patient about the cycles of nature, bringing comfort to both her and her family. For another patient who was anxious about the things he’d done as a soldier, Rourke pointed out the room full of family who loved him and reminded him of the kindness he had shown others throughout his life. "You love people, and people love you. That's all that counts," Rourke told him, bringing him peace in his final moments.  

Gathering the fragments

As a woman in ministry, Rourke has frequently navigated institutional and administrative hurdles, including not being able to become ordained in her Catholic faith. Drawing inspiration from a line in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land — “These fragments I have shored against my ruins” — she views her life's work as gathering fragments of care, faith, and connection to help restore broken lives. She continually advocates for compassion, capability, and community support over rigid titles, encouraging broader opportunities for women in service and ministry. She has written to previous popes about it and said she plans to write to Pope Leo XIV as well.

Her commitment to giving back also came full circle at Nazareth, where she established the Kathleen E. Rourke Scholarship in 2004, awarded to students majoring in English with an interest in American literature. The fund is her way of paying it forward in honor of her parents, who paid for her Nazareth education. 

Her advice to students today reflects a simple, powerful truth she discovered on Nazareth’s campus decades ago: “Take time to listen to people’s stories and be blessed by every individual who crosses your path. None of us walk alone.”


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