Valerie Sheares Ashby is set to become the sixth president following the retirement of current UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski.
Valerie Sheares Ashby is set to make history as the next president of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC).
Ashby will be the first woman to serve in this role after being appointed by the University System of Maryland (USM) Board of Regents. She’ll become the sixth president following the retirement of current UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski.
Since 2015, Ashby has served as dean of Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. She will leave Duke on June 30 and take office at UMBC on Aug. 1.
“I am grateful to the UMBC presidential search committee, chaired by Regent Michelle Gourdine, for finding such a distinguished leader among so many great candidates,” said USM Board Chair Linda R. Gooden, per reports.
As the first woman to fill this role Ashby told the news station, “I’ve been the first and only many times woman, the first person of color, the first woman person of color. I am accustomed to only and first, so it’s the nature of the world is in which I live in.”
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