Pat Henry was hired as an administrator in the Harvard Department of Athletics in 1980. Today she serves as the Senior Associate Director of Athletics for the largest intercollegiate athletic program in the country. Harvard supports 42 varsity sports. As a member of the senior management team, she is responsible for the programmatic and strategic planning administration of all intercollegiate, club sports, intramurals and recreation. Among numerous initiatives she created the Harvard Radcliffe Foundation for Women’s Athletics. This program has broadened the base of support for all of women’s sports and helped influenced fundraising across all the sports programs. Harvard University, as a member of the Ivy League, sponsors a robust collegiate program that supports over 1,200 varsity student athletes and has nearly 3,000 students participating in club sports and intramurals. For example, some highlights from 2014 - Harvard won 10 Ivy League Championships, named its 54th Rhodes Scholar, hosted ESPN’s GameDay prior to the Harvard-Yale Football Game, and placed 2nd in the NCAA Championship in Women’s Field Hockey.
Throughout her three decade tenure at Harvard she has held various leadership positions in organizations that support sports and higher education. In service to the US Olympic Committee she managed the Olympic Village for 6 Olympic Soccer games held in Harvard Stadium as part of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, represented the US and lectured at various international Olympic conferences and was a member of the USOC Education Committee for 2 decades, serving as its chair from 1993-96. She served as President of the Boston Local Organizing Committee for the 2006 NCAA Women’s Final Four Basketball Championship.
B.A., Gettysburg College, Health and Physical Education, 1971
M.Ed., West Chester University, Health and Physical Education, 1975
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT HALL OF FAME AWARD 2015
North Penn High School, 1967
Patricia Henry has been a member of Harvard's senior administration in the department of athletics since 1980. She currently serves as the department's Senior Associate Director of Athletics. Henry oversees the programming of the largest Division I varsity athletics program in the nation. She is responsible for the development and well-being of nearly 1,200 student-athletes and 42 varsity teams.
Pat was a catalyst behind the successful effort to bring the 2006 NCAA Women's Basketball Final Four to Boston. She served as president of the local organizing committee for that event, which generated $25 million in revenue to the Boston economy.
Henry is the founder of the Harvard Radcliffe Foundation for Women's Athletics, which has greatly enhanced and broadened the programming and financial support for women's athletics programs at the university since the foundation's inception in 1981. Pat has served on a number of visiting committees and advisory boards at other institutions and currently a trustee emeritus at her alma mater, Gettysburg College, receiving its Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009.
Henry also has worked with amateur athletics in a number of different capacities on the national and international levels. She has served on the United States Olympic Women's Rowing Committee and as secretary of the United States Olympic Committee Education Council and was co-coordinator of the 1984 Olympic soccer matches that were played in Harvard Stadium. She has been a delegate to the Taiwan Olympic Academy and was a lecturer and representative of the USOC at the Korean Olympic Academy. Henry has served on the NCAA men's and women's swimming committee and is a former member of the Eastern College Athletic Conference executive council. Her work in collegiate athletics recently led to her being named as one of eight 2007 National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators (NACWAA) Administrators of the Year.
Before coming to Harvard, Henry had spent 10 years as a teacher and swimming coach at North Penn High School in Lansdale, PA. As a coach, she won eight league championships, one PIAA State Title and saw four individuals and 11 relay teams achieve All-America status. She was inducted into the North Penn Alumni Athletic Hall of Fame in 2008.
Henry is a 1971 graduate of Gettysburg, where she was a standout in field hockey and basketball and was chosen as the school's Outstanding Female Athlete as a senior. She holds a bachelor's degree in Health and Physical Education and was inducted into Gettysburg's Athletics Hall of Fame in 1987.
Henry earned a Master's Degree in Health and Physical Education from West Chester State College in 1975.
