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Rutgers' Board of Governors approved Julie Hermann today as the school's new athletic director.

(Michelle Hutchins/Louisville Athletics)

Rutgers’ bold new move into the Big Ten will come with bold new leadership – with a woman running the athletic department for the first time in school history.

Julie Hermann, most recently the No. 2 athletic administrator at Louisville, has been named the school’s new athletic director -- making her one of just three women at a BCS program to currently hold the athletic department’s top position (N.C. State’s Debbie Yow and California’s Sandy Barbour are the others), according to two people familiar with the process.

Both people requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on behalf of the school.

Hermann, 49, has most recently served as the Cardinals’ senior associate athletic director and senior woman administrator.

She was chosen for the position at Rutgers over Wisconsin deputy athletic director Sean Frazier following an emergency voting session this morning by the school’s 11-member Board of Governors. That session was necessitated after Rutgers’ six-member Executive Athletic Committee deadlocked at 3-3 in trying to choose between Hermann and Frazier as Tim Pernetti’s successor.

Pernetti resigned on April 5 in the wake of the Mike Rice scandal.

Though she lacks direct football experience, Hermann oversaw 20 of Louisville’s 23 sports. The school is coming off a victory in a BCS bowl game (Sugar Bowl), a national championship in men’s basketball and a Final Four appearance in women's basketball.

She has worked in the Louisville athletic department since 1998.

A former volleyball player at Nebraska, Hermann also served as Tennessee's head volleyball coach before moving to Louisville and the administrative side of college athletics. This will be her first experience as an athletic director.

She will guide Rutgers through a transition year in the American Athletic Conference before the school begins play in the Big Ten in 2014.

Hermann is just the fourth athletic director Rutgers has had since 1973, not counting Carl Kirschner’s two brief stints as interim AD.

An introductory press conference will take place at 3 p.m. today at the Rutgers Visitor's Center in Piscataway.