Laurie Braden, RCRSP
Laurie Braden, RCRSP is currently the Executive Director of University Recreation at Louisiana State University. She is responsible for the overall leadership of LSU UREC and leads a team of 40 full-time staff members and 350 student employees. Laurie recently supervised the completion of a four-year expansion project to LSU UREC that saw facility space more than double from 120,000 square feet to 257,000 square feet.
Prior to her tenure at LSU, she was the Director of Campus Recreation at the University of Texas-Brownsville from 2007–2010. While there, she developed a new and growing campus receation department from the ground up. She was prepared for that pioneering experience having previously served as Associate Director of Programs and Facilities at Central Michigan University from 1999–2007. Laurie received her B.S. from the University of Florida in Recreation Administration in 1988 and her M.S. from North Carolina State University in Recreation Resource Administration in 1991. She is a Certified Recreational Sports Specialist and a graduate of the NIRSA School of Recreational Sports Management.
Laurie has been a member of NIRSA for 29 years and previously served as President of the NIRSA Board of Directors in adddition to serving on multiple committees, task forces, and work teams. She has presented on a breadth of topics—including communication, conflict resolution, sexual harrassment, career development, and provision of inclusive services to underserved populations, among others—at local, regional, and national levels. She has been a leading volunteer planner of state, regional, and national conferences.
On each of her campuses, Laurie has been successful by actively fostering relationships with student life, residential life, health services, and athletics. In 2011, she helped endow a scholarship with the NIRSA Foundation to assist in addressing issues of social justice within recreational sports. From 2000–2009 she founded and directed a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that raised funds to send girls to summer sports camps.
Laurie has been a recipient of the NIRSA Foundation Will Holsberry Scholarship, the Michael J. Stevenson MIRSA Outstanding Service Award, and multiple NIRSA Annual Service Awards. Outside of her professional life Laurie enjoys running, working out, reading, and playing tennis.