Faculty: Dr. Andrea Buenaño

Dr. Andrea Buenaño can relate to the challenges faced and balancing required of college students.

Buenaño is a former collegiate student-athlete who had myriad experiences then, and later professionally, in blending athletics with academics prior to shifting full time into academic instruction in 2015. She was formerly a college preparatory associate athletics director in Florida and later at Penn State University, she oversaw student-athletes on seven high-level National Collegiate Athletic Association teams, helping them with life skills, career development, and athletic and academic advancement.

She uses many of those same mentorship traits at East Carolina University, which she joined in 2022 and serves as an assistant professor and coordinator of the sport management undergraduate concentration in the Department of Recreation Sciences. No matter the educational environment, Buenaño relies on the qualities of being empathetic, passionate and dedicated to student success.

“I feel the same thing here of having the opportunity to be in front of students and enjoy helping them with their career aspects,” said Buenaño, who played softball as a catcher for the University of South Florida and later served as a youth programs director with the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League. “That is very interchangeable. Getting to know them during office hours and asking them about their weekends and things of that nature, I think we have a responsibility that goes beyond what we teach them academically. They will remember how you treated them. I think that is at the heart of connecting to all students.”

Dr. Andrea Buenaño helped lead a trip to Peru, where her father was born, in March as part of the 2024 ECU and Special Olympics Unified Youth Exchange project.

Buenaño added that connections to ECU students are unique and impactful.

“I enjoy the diversity I have in the classroom at ECU. It’s unlike anything that I’ve had at my two previous institutions,” Buenaño said. “I love that there are students in the classroom who can learn from one another, but also that I can learn from them. It emulates what our industry is all about in sport.”

The interdisciplinary aspects of the College of Health and Human Performance showed when Buenaño served on the HHP team as project director in sports and experiential learning for the 2024 ECU and Special Olympics Unified Youth Exchange project. It allowed ECU students to interact with and learn from Peru Special Olympics delegates while visiting Peru during spring break, and later, Peruvian students and Special Olympics athletes visited ECU for a week.

Buenaño also was alongside sports studies students when HHP representatives worked at the Super Bowl for the first time in Arizona in 2023. She then helped students the following year plan for their Super Bowl LVIII learning experience in Las Vegas.

“Opportunities like the Super Bowl and taking groups to the Emerging Women in Sports Leadership Summit in Durham and exposing our students to these experiential learning opportunities, with the support from ECU and our college, fits right within the mission of our institution, and is an extra bonus for students,” Buenaño said. “As educators, it’s nice to have that support. At ECU, we have support to provide our students with opportunities they never dreamed of before or might be out of the norm. We look forward to creating more opportunities and partnerships with our new home in recreation sciences and sport management, exposing our program and concentration to amazing opportunities, like in Peru where we were able to fuse sport and inclusion. The experience has been awesome.”

Buenaño’s father moved decades ago from Peru and her Sudan-born mother moved from Venezuela for college as students at Florida International University in Miami. The support Buenaño received from family growing up in Florida added another layer in the university setting when she transitioned to her role as an eager student-athlete at USF, giving her plenty of opportunities to learn about the balance of academics and athletics.

Those experiences piqued her interest in higher education and helped mold Buenaño’s current teaching style and passion for advocacy.

“I also am very firm,” she said. “But that is real life, and I want them to know that you can’t sugarcoat everything. The role as an educator is to help them graduate and guide them academically toward career goals. Being a student-athlete in college and all the support that I had sort of prompted me to want to pay it forward.”

FAST FACTS

What do you like to do when not working? I have a daughter, and I love spending time with her and being a mom. It’s the best job in the world!

Last thing I watched on TV: “Shrinking”

First job: Camp counselor

Favorite meal: Anything Peruvian food

One thing most people don’t know about me: That I am a first generation born in the U.S. to immigrant parents, who met as international students (father was born in Peru and my mother in Sudan).

PIRATE PRIDE

Years working at ECU: 3 years

What I do at ECU: My responsibilities include teaching and research, as well as overseeing the experiential learning courses for our program

What I love about ECU: The students. We have a wonderful diverse population of students in our program.

Research interests: Thus far my research interests have been developed around leadership and career development, experiential and community-based learning, and students and student-athletes. These areas have always informed my passion and focus on which pedagogical methods are most effective for student success.

What advice do you give to students? I use a line out of the great Kara Lawson playbook: ‘That it does not matter if you are great today, if tomorrow you are not consistent.’ The sport industry is constantly evolving, and it’s not just a matter of keeping up with current trends. What and how you prepare each day matters.

Favorite class to teach? My favorite class to teach is diversity and inclusion in sport.