Dr. Nilzarrel Townsend currently serves as the Senior Learning Specialist at Rutgers University. He arrived in August 2015 and has over sixteen years of experience working with the Division I student-athlete population. In his current role, Townsend is primarily responsible for assessing the yearly, in-coming student-athlete admits. Townsend assesses the student-athlete population through the initial educational assessment screening process. Townsend works directly with the entire Olympic Sport student-athletes, including Men’s and Women’s Basketball, along with the Football student-athlete population. He provides individual learning strategies and conducts academic skills workshops to small groups of students to address goal setting, time management, study skills, self-advocacy skills, test-taking, organization and reading comprehension.
Townsend also completes academic pre-screens to identify potential learning disability referrals. Townsend serves as the primary liaison for the Office of Disability Services (ODS) and the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology (GSAPP), regarding assessments, evaluations, the screening process and student-athlete referrals, Psycho-Educational Evaluations, and Neuropsychological testing. Prior to arriving at Rutgers University, Townsend worked two years (2013-2015) at the University of Maryland, as a Learning Specialist but was quickly promoted within his first four months of employment, to a Senior Learning Specialist. Townsend served as the lead Senior Learning Specialist for the entire Olympic Sport student-athlete population, including the football student-athletes as well.
At the University of Maryland, Townsend’s responsibilities also included serving as the lead initial educational assessments point person. Townsend was responsible for screening and assessing the entire Olympic Sport population. The educational assessment data/information collected, allowed Townsend to make reasonable outside evaluation/testing referrals to local practitioners and licensed psychologists on campus at the University of Maryland. Furthermore, Townsend managed the day-to-day operations of learning support services for the Olympic sport student-athletes. Providing direct supervision to the XFINITY Center’s Learning Specialist and Assistant Learning Specialists.
In addition, to accurately and fairly completing performance appraisals while also providing guidance and assistance with student-athletes as needed. Furthermore, Dr. Townsend served as the Educational Assistant (EA) liaison in the XFINITY Center, assisting with the budgeting, recruitment, training, evaluation and retention of EA’s. Moreover, Townsend served as the primary liaison to licensed psychologists and the Office of Disability Support Services for Olympic Sport student-athletes. In addition, Dr. Townsend referred student-athletes for the completion of learning disability pre-screens, while reviewing all Psycho-Educational Evaluations and Neuro-Psychological Evaluation reports from psychologist for Olympic Sport student-athletes and Football student-athletes, and assisting with the implementation of Assistive Technology. Prior to arriving at the University of Maryland, Townsend served as the Academic Skills Specialist for the entire Olympic sport programs, at Saint Joseph’s University for one year (2012-2013). In addition, Townsend served as the Academic Learning Specialist for Temple University for four years (2008-2012), for the football program.
Dr. Townsend earned his BS in Business Administration with a concentration in Sports Management from Urbana University in 2003 and was a member of the men’s basketball team. Following graduation, Townsend played semi-professional basketball for the American Basketball Association (ABA) before receiving his Master’s Degree in education from Urbana University in 2005. Townsend earned his Doctorate (Ed.D.) in Higher Education Leadership from North Central University in 2016. In addition, Townsend earned a Graduate Program Certificate in The Science of Well-Being (Psychology) from Yale University, in March 2020. Moreover, Dr. Townsend earned his second Master’s Degree in Adult and Continuing Education from Rutgers University in 2021. Furthermore, Dr. Townsend also served as a member of the Scarlet Knights Secondary Sports Administration program and as the Secondary Sport Administrator for (Men’s & Women’s Track & Field), during 2019-2021. Dr. Townsend has presented at the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics (N4A), and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Accelerating Academic Success Program (AASP) Conference. Additionally, Dr. Townsend has continued to serve as an (N4A) Learning Specialist Professional Development Institute (PDI) Faculty Member, since 2017.
