Shenandoah University News
Tracy Fitzsimmons, Ph.D., is 16th President of Shenandoah University
She takes office on July 1; formal investiture is Sept. 26, 2008
WINCHESTER, Va., June 30 PRNewswire-USNewswire — Forty-one-year-old Tracy Fitzsimmons begins her new position as president of Shenandoah University on July 1, 2008, and a two-day inauguration celebration is scheduled for Thursday and Friday, Sept. 25 and 26, 2008. Dr. Fitzsimmons is now the youngest sitting university president in Virginia.
In her first two days as president, Fitzsimmons will meet with a range of constituents, including alumni, current students, trustees, faculty and staff members. She will also have lunch with other new community leaders - Winchester's new City Manager Brannon Godfrey, the new president of Winchester Medical Center Al Pilong and the new Chief Operating Officer of Valley Health Reese Jackson.
Shenandoah University celebrates President Fitzsimmons' formal inauguration in September with a variety of events, including presentations by Pulitzer Prize-nominated author, historian, civil rights activist, actress, producer and director Maya Angelou and National Public Radio host and independent journalist Jay Allison. Tying in with the inauguration theme "Imagine & Inspire," the City of Winchester and Frederick and Clarke counties have made Allison's book "This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women" the 2008 "One Book, One Community" selection. President Fitzsimmons will be invested in a ceremony at 11 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 26.
On May 1, 2007, Shenandoah's board of trustees voted to elect Dr. Fitzsimmons, then the university's senior vice president & vice president for academic affairs, to succeed Dr. James A. Davis as president. Davis, 63, completed 26 years of service to Shenandoah University when he left office on June 30, 2008.
Fitzsimmons is the first woman president of the 133-year-old institution and the fourth president to serve at the Winchester campus since the institution moved from Dayton, Va., in 1960. "We are very pleased to have a person of Dr. Fitzsimmons' experience and talent to lead Shenandoah University," said Bill Brandt, trustee and chair of the Presidential Search Committee. "I believe she will be an exceptional president. She is a visionary, a natural leader and — at her core — an educator. She has the advantage of being mentored by Dr. Davis. I see her building upon this legacy, while at the same time setting her own direction. It will be an exciting time at Shenandoah University."
Fitzsimmons began her tenure at Shenandoah University in 2001, when she joined the faculty as dean of the College of Arts & Sciences and also as a professor of political science. Just one year later, she became vice president for academic affairs at Shenandoah, and in October 2006, she was named senior vice president & vice president for academic affairs. Before accepting the dean's position at Shenandoah, Fitzsimmons was a tenured associate professor of government at the University of Redlands in Redlands, Calif. While at Redlands, she also served as chair of the College of Arts & Sciences faculty and president of the Academic Assembly. Her regional expertise in Latin America also includes knowledge of democratization, gender, ethnicity and development.
She has taught courses ranging from Global Democratization and Comparative Politics, to Women in Politics in Latin America, Latin American Politics, Ethnicity and Ethnic Conflict. She has led travel courses to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. She has also published many scholarly works that have appeared in publications, journals and books, and remains a sought-after speaker at academic conferences in the United States and abroad.
Fitzsimmons earned her doctoral degree in political science in 1995 and a master's degree in Latin American studies from Stanford University in 1991. She earned her undergraduate degree in politics from Princeton University in 1989. She also completed all of the courses for an M.A. in political science from the Universidad Catolica de Chile from 1989 to 1991.
She is fluent in Spanish, proficient in French and conversational in Haitian Creole.
Fitzsimmons currently serves on the boards of Shentel (Shenandoah Telecommunications), Blue Ridge District BB&T Bank, Powhatan School, Grafton School and the Winchester/Frederick County Shelter for Abused Women. She served as a consultant for higher education reform for the University of Isai, Romania, in 2004 and has been an invited participant at the Salzburg Seminar. She has served as an off-site and on-site accreditation reviewer for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
She and her husband Charles Call live in Reliance, Va., with their daughter Shayla and twin sons, Dash and Jag. Dr. Chuck Call is assistant professor in the program on Peace & Conflict Resolution at American University in Washington, D.C. He works on post-conflict peace-building, democratization, human rights and policing and justice reform. He has conducted field research in all of Central America, Colombia, Haiti, Afghanistan, West Africa, Bosnia, Kosovo and South Africa. He spent most of 2004 at the U.N. Department of Political Affairs as its peace-building consultant. He has worked as a consultant for Human Rights Watch, the European Commission, USAID, UNDP, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Washington Office on Latin America, and he has received grants from the U.S. Institute of Peace, the MacArthur Foundation and the National Science Foundation. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University and his B.A. cum laude from Princeton University.
The Fitzsimmons-Call home is a circa 1917 converted schoolhouse (once known as the Shenandoah Normal School, but not affiliated with Shenandoah University), and the couple frequently hosts theatrical productions, concerts and poetry readings. Fitzsimmons and her family are members of Reliance United Methodist Church.
For more information about President Fitzsimmons as well as Shenandoah University's inauguration events in September, go to http://www.su.edu/inauguration/
Shenandoah University is a comprehensive Level VI private university with an enrollment of more than 3,000 students in six schools: College of Arts & Sciences, Harry F. Byrd, Jr. School of Business, Shenandoah Conservatory, Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy, School of Health Professions (Athletic Training, Nursing, Respiratory Care, Occupational Therapy, Physician Assistant Studies and Physical Therapy) and the School of Education & Human Development. The university offers more than 80 programs of study at the undergraduate, graduate and professional levels. For more information, contact the Public Relations Office at (540) 665-4510 or visit www.su.edu.
Contact: Cathy Kuehner
(540) 678-4327
ckuehner@su.edu
or
Ann Campbell
(540) 665-5422
acampbel@su.edu
SOURCE Shenandoah University
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