The University of Mary Washington Board of Visitors today announced the selection of Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Chancellor Judy G. Hample to serve as the eighth president of the institution, effective July 1, 2008.
Dr. Hample has been chancellor of Pennsylvania’s 14-campus, 110,000-student public university system since August 2001. Previously, she was chancellor of the State University System of Florida and also spent nearly two decades on college campuses, serving in a variety of faculty and academic administrative positions.
“After spending the last 10 years in system administration, I am truly excited to be given this opportunity to return to my roots in higher education, to a campus environment where I will be able to work closely again with members of a university community,” Dr. Hample said. “I was drawn to the University of Mary Washington for several reasons, including its impressive history, its public mission and its vision for the 21st century.”
“Dr. Hample has a long and distinguished career in higher education, and we are pleased that she has decided to continue that career at the University of Mary Washington,” said Board of Visitors Rector J. William Poole. “The wealth of experience she has accumulated at the helm of two of the nation’s outstanding higher education systems, as well as her impressive record as a scholar, teacher and campus administrator, made her rise to the top of a distinguished applicant pool.
Under Dr. Hample’s nearly seven-year leadership, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education made significant advances in key areas related to student achievement, academic quality and operational effectiveness. As PASSHE chancellor, she encouraged the development of a variety of new policies, programs and initiatives, all of which have helped to create a culture of accountability and performance throughout the State System. This focus has helped enable PASSHE and its member universities to provide improved services to students while making the most of its available resources.
In her role as chancellor, Dr. Hample serves as PASSHE’s chief executive officer, overseeing an annual operating budget of $1.8 billion and more than 12,000 faculty and staff. She directs policy initiatives to the Board of Governors, which is responsible for establishing broad educational, fiscal and personnel policy and overseeing the effective management of the System.
Among the major policy initiatives Dr. Hample spearheaded were the establishment of new graduation requirements and the development of a common academic calendar to accommodate the increasing number of collaborative instructional programs being offered between and among PASSHE universities. Her focus on systemwide accountability and performance funding also resulted in significant improvement in retention and graduation rates for students across all 14 PASSHE universities, a significant increase in the number of accredited academic professional programs at all of the universities and improvement in the first-time pass rate by students seeking teacher certification.
PASSHE’s minority enrollment has increased from 3.7 percent of the student population in Fall 2001 to 11.4 percent in Fall 2007. The number and percentage of minorities in staff, faculty and executive positions also have increased during Dr. Hample’s tenure.
PASSHE also has instituted a number of policy and program initiatives proposed by Dr. Hample designed to strengthen academic quality and enhance student affordability. These include instituting freshmen orientation programs with an academic focus, improving academic advising and increasing the number of faculty with terminal degrees appropriate to their instructional discipline. The System also has increased its library holdings, has increased undergraduate and faculty research opportunities, has boosted funding for faculty development and has more than tripled the number and value of federal grants and contracts.
Prior to being named PASSHE chancellor, Dr. Hample served the State University System of Florida’s Board of Regents as vice chancellor for planning, budgeting and policy analysis (1998-2000), executive vice chancellor (1999-2000) and chancellor (2001). In Florida, she oversaw 40,000 employees and an annual operating budget of $5.2 billion.
Dr. Hample’s higher education system experience is complemented by more than 20 years of campus experience as a faculty member and academic administrator. Her first faculty appointment was at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana as a lecturer and director of intercollegiate debate in the Department of Speech Communication. Her first administrative appointments were at Western Illinois University as a department division director and, later, assistant dean for the College of Arts and Sciences. She also served as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Emporia State University in Kansas, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana State University and senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Toledo in Ohio. In her campus administrative appointments, Dr. Hample also held tenured professorships.
Dr. Hample has been active in many professional organizations, including the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC), the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) and the American Council on Education (ACE), for which she recently completed a term as board member on the ACE Commission on Women in Higher Education.
For more than two decades, Dr. Hample has contributed actively to the work of national and regional associations in the field of communication. She served many times as a consultant-evaluator for the North Central Accreditation Association and as a public consultant-evaluator for the American Bar Association. In her administrative roles, Dr. Hample has been appointed or elected to several higher education statewide committees such as her service as a board member and chair of OhioLINK, the State of Ohio’s automated library database system. She also has contributed to public service activities through efforts such as serving as a trustee for the WGTE Public Broadcasting Network in Ohio.
Dr. Hample has many academic publications and presentations to her credit. She has published scholarly articles and presented research findings in the disciplines of history and communication, focused primarily on the communication of protest and dissent and the relationship between history and rhetoric. She served as editor for Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching and co-edited three volumes of Teaching in the Middle Ages. In addition, she has been invited to make numerous presentations before state, regional and national associations and organizations on topics including leadership and management, accountability, performance budgeting, equity and diversity, strategic planning, general education, defining institutional missions and achieving excellence.
Dr. Hample earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in communication and secondary education (French) from David Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn. She holds both master’s and doctoral degrees in communication from The Ohio State University.
The University’s Board of Visitors was assisted in its presidential search by Greenwood/Asher and Associates, a leading national search consulting firm. The search process, which was confidential, attracted a large pool of well-qualified applicants, including many college presidents, chancellors, provosts and other high-ranking administrators. A Presidential Search Advisory Committee, comprising faculty, student, staff, alumni and UMW Foundation representatives, along with several members of the Board of Visitors, carefully reviewed applications, conducted initial interviews, consulted references and recommended final candidates to the full Board of Visitors. The Board then selected Dr. Hample as President.
The University of Mary Washington is a public, coeducational institution enrolling 5,000 students, located in Fredericksburg, Va., halfway between Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Va. The university has been recognized for its academic selectivity and excellence in the liberal arts. It also is committed to providing the leading regional graduate and professional programs in education, business and management information systems.