Although Dr O’Rourke’s career highlights are too abundant to address in their entirety, one of his extraordinary achievements includes being a RAND/UCLA Center for Health Policy Study Fellow (1986-87). In addition, he has held numerous visiting professorships, including ones at the University of Nebraska (1972), University of Northern Colorado (1976, 1979-80), Ball State University (1976-77), Central Michigan University (1983-present), Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (1985), Penn State University (1986), University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa (1992), and internationally, at universities in Spain and Germany (1976-77).

Future leaders in health education can look to Dr O’Rourke’s remarkable record of service for inspiration. With respect to professional associations, he has served as president (1995-96) of the American School Health Association (ASHA) and president (1992-93) of the Association for the Advancement of Health Education (AAHE). In addition to these positions he was elected to the ASHA Governing Council (1978-81), the ASHA Budget and Finance Committee (as chairperson), the ASHA Executive Committee (1983-1986), and the ASHA Research Council (1973), which he chaired (1979-80). In addition, he was elected to the AAHE Board of Directors (1986-89). ASHA made him a Fellow (1975) and presented him with its Distinguished Service Award (1982) and its Research Council Award for outstanding research contributions to school health (1991). Similar honors have been bestowed upon him by AAHE for scholarship (1988), distinguished service (1997), and as Fellow (1997). He also is one of the Founding Fellows of the American Academy of Health Behavior (1998). At the state level he was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Society for Public Health Education, an affiliate the National SOPHE organization (1978-1980), and to the Executive Council of the Illinois Public Health Association (1984-1987). In addition, he has served many other Illinois organizations. Dr O’Rourke has distinguished himself further as a member of the Secretary of Health and Human Services Council on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (1990-1992).

His service and research contributions as an editor and member of editorial boards of prominent journals supplement other citations above. He has been associate editor of the Journal of School Health (1977-80; 1981-84) and chairperson of that journal’s editorial board (1987-88), as well as a member of the editorial boards of the American Journal of Health Behavior and its predecessors (1988-present), the American Journal of Health Studies (1989-present), the Journal of Drug Education (1980-present), and the American Journal of Health Education (2001-05).

Dr O’Rourke’s resume of publications is both extensive and diverse, consisting of approximately 100 articles in professional journals, dozens of technical reports and monographs, and several book chapters. He has presented nearly 200 papers at professional meetings and conferences, and he has been a keynote speaker on more than one occasion. A key work in recent years has been his collaboration with Stephen J. Notaro and James M. Eddy on a model for examination and ranking of health education doctoral programs in higher education. The first iteration of this model resulted in a publication in 2000 in the Journal of Health Education (Vol 31, No 2, pp 81-89). Although such rankings are common in a number of fields, this paper was the first to rank health education doctoral programs systematically using set criteria. This system has been further refined and is the subject of a second study now in progress.

Dr O’Rourke’s record emphatically illustrates that scholarship is a multidimensional entity. Dr O’Rourke has personified excellence in scholarship and the American Journal of Health Behavior takes great pride in profiling these achievements Inside the Academy.