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Granberg will succeed Mark Wrighton, a veteran schooling chief who stepped into the presidency a yr in the past to regular the college after his predecessor’s abrupt departure.
Thomas LeBlanc’s four-year time period as president was marked by controversies, together with the bumpy rollout in 2019 of a plan to shrink undergraduate enrollment on GWU’s D.C. campuses by about 20 %, with a bigger deal with recruiting college students interested by science, know-how, engineering and math. LeBlanc additionally drew accusations of racism in 2020 after he made a comment to a scholar, captured on video, through which he posed a hypothetical scenario of a majority of scholars agreeing to “shoot all of the Black folks right here.” The comment got here as LeBlanc was discussing the college’s stance on fossil gas divestment. LeBlanc later apologized for the comment, however he misplaced the arrogance of lots of the school members.
The coronavirus pandemic led GWU to pause the enrollment-shrinking plan. Now, a brand new president will information the form of a personal college that counted 25,939 college students within the fall, together with 2,941 freshmen. The pinnacle depend of first-year college students is the most important for the college, exceeding the earlier file of two,845 in 2018, in keeping with federal information.
Granberg, 60, has been provost at RIT since 2018 and earlier than that spent 17 years on the college and in management positions at Clemson College in South Carolina. As provost, she is the chief educational officer of a college with about 17,000 college students, together with 14,000 undergraduates. Her biography on the RIT web site lists her “key initiatives,” together with “growing undergraduate scholar success, increasing doctoral schooling [and] enhancing amenities for instruction and analysis.”
She earned a bachelor’s diploma in historical past from the College of California at Davis, and grasp’s and doctoral levels in sociology from Vanderbilt College. Her scholarly experience is within the sociology of self, identification and psychological well being.
“I’ve identified about and admired GW for an extended, very long time,” Granberg mentioned in a phone interview. “It’s a storied college in a storied metropolis.”
Grace E. Speights, chair of the college’s board of trustees, mentioned Granberg will convey “vitality and pleasure” to the college because it seeks to change into one of many nation’s preeminent analysis establishments. “Now we have set our objectives excessive,” Speights mentioned.
Constructed into the job description as GWU performed the presidential search was a really particular aim: to boost the profile of the college sufficient that it could qualify to hitch the Affiliation of American Universities. The AAU, an invitation-only group with a considerably opaque membership-selection course of, contains 63 universities in the USA and two in Canada. Its members embody non-public establishments resembling Johns Hopkins College and public flagships such because the College of Maryland and the College of Virginia.
None of its present members are based mostly within the District of Columbia, though Catholic College was a founding member of the AAU in 1900. It left the affiliation in 2002.
For GWU, identified for strengths in fields together with worldwide affairs, political science and public well being, the aim of becoming a member of the AAU helps to outline its subsequent steps within the close to future. It needs to broaden its attain in science and engineering, an ambition that has been evident for greater than a decade. And it needs to change into extra selective and prestigious.
Non-public city universities, resembling Boston College, Tulane College in New Orleans and New York College, all belong to the AAU. In addition they occur to be ranked larger than GWU on the U.S. Information & World Report record of nationwide universities. GWU is tied for 62nd on that record. The presidential job description highlights the U.S. Information rating as a metric to look at, although the rating’s methodology has lengthy been a topic of intense debate inside larger schooling.
“GW’s subsequent president can be anticipated to recruit and retain a world-class, various school to extend— rapidly and considerably—the popularity, stature and rankings of all GW’s educational items so as to be aggressive with complete analysis universities ranked within the prime 50 by U.S. Information & World Report,” the outline mentioned. “This would be the first step towards GW’s bold aim to change into the one AAU college within the nation’s capital.”
GWU officers acknowledge that the pursuit of AAU membership will in all probability take years. Granberg mentioned the important thing can be to point out the college’s strengths in a complete approach and to redouble efforts to recruit prime school and college students. “It’s actually about constructing deep facilities of excellence, in an increasing number of areas,” she mentioned.
As for the scale of the college, Speights mentioned the file head depend of freshmen is an anomaly that won't essentially decide future enrollment targets. Granberg mentioned that enrollment is “an especially essential a part of any main planning train” and emphasised that it could be one of many first questions she can be reviewing. She mentioned the “high quality of the scholar expertise” can be a prime precedence.
College and scholar leaders issued statements praising the board’s selection.
James Tielsch, a professor of world well being who was on the presidential search committee, mentioned: “Her file of educational management at premier analysis establishments reveals her precedence of rising the affect of all disciplines, and he or she clearly communicated the significance of working collectively to advance GW.”
Christian Zidouemba, president of the scholar affiliation, mentioned: “I imagine she can be a proponent of inclusion and somebody who listens, meets college students the place they're and addresses points which can be essential to us.”
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