Welcome, Dr. Rue!

Yesterday the big news on campus was the announcement of Dr. Penny Rue as the new Vice President for Campus Life, effective mid July.  There was a press conference of sorts in the Green Room of Reynolda Hall, open to anyone who wished to attend.  It was a nice crowd.

President Hatch and Provost Kersh spoke about Dr. Rue’s many accomplishments, and then we had a chance to hear from her personally. She seems like a very affable person – relaxed and easy at the microphone, showing great collegiality with the president and provost, very smart, and one who appears to really love working with college students and campus communities.  The News Service did a great story on her online.

Some of the things that struck me during her remarks:

She’s worked in virtually every area of campus life during her career, so my sense is she knows a lot of the ins and outs of things like residence life, academics, counseling (where she has an advanced degree), and more.  She also talked about having been in the dunking booth, which suggests to me she is an administrator that is game for student activities and that she knows how to connect with them.

She has been integrally involved in issues of well-being on the campuses she has served, and that will tie in well with the work we are doing here to educate the whole person and promote well-being, which is a primary focus.

She has strong ties to the ACC, having gone to Duke as an undergraduate and having done graduate work at the University of Maryland.  She also held positions at UVA and UNC Chapel Hill.

She has been married for nearly 30 years and loves the Outer Banks and Paris (editor’s note: these are some of my favorites too!)

This is an exciting appointment and it will be very interesting to see in the coming months and years what kind of impact Dr. Rue will have on our campus community.  Until then, we welcome her with open arms!