For the primary time in its 170-year historical past, Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois might be led by a lady.
The college’s board of trustees introduced Monday that Rebecca M. Blank would turn into the establishment’s seventeenth president upon taking workplace in Summer 2022. Blank is at the moment the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a place that she has held since 2013.
“I am honored and delighted to accept the job as Northwestern’s next president,” stated Blank in a press release. “Northwestern is a school that I have known and admired for years. Its reputation as a top-rated educational and research institution has grown each decade. It will be my mission to make sure the institution’s reputation and quality continues to accelerate.”
The board of trustees praised Blank as a selection that can assist assist the college into the longer term. “The Presidential Search Committee met with an incredibly competitive pool of candidates and unanimously recommended Rebecca Blank to the Board for election as our 17th president,” Peter Barris, the chair of the Presidential Search Committee and a vice-chair of Northwestern’s Board of Trustees stated in a press release.
Kris Connor/Getty
A widely known economist, Blank has a Ph.D. in economics from the famend Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has taught as a professor at a number of the prime tutorial universities throughout the United States, together with Northwestern, Princeton University, and the University of Michigan.
Blank has additionally spent a major period of time working for the federal government. She labored for the Council of Economic Advisers throughout George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton’s administrations, and in addition served because the each Deputy Secretary of Commerce and Acting Secretary of Commerce beneath former President Barack Obama.
Her financial prowess has been acknowledged by quite a few organizations, and he or she was a recipient of a lifetime achievement award as a 2021 Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association.
During her tenure on the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Blank has been credited with quite a few applications striving to make post-secondary training extra reasonably priced whereas enhancing financial development and analysis. One of her most well-known platforms was Bucky’s Tuition Promise, a assured free 4 years of tuition to Wisconsin-based college students whose households make beneath $60,000.
According to the assertion from Northwestern, beneath Blank’s management, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has turn into one of many prime ten public colleges by way of six-year commencement charges.
“My goal was to leave UW-Madison stronger than when I arrived,” Blank stated. “I believe I’ve accomplished that.”
Blank might be on the helm of the Big Ten Conference’s solely privately funded college, and one that’s typically thought-about among the many finest each nationally and globally. Ranked because the twenty fourth finest college on the planet by the Times Higher Education, notable alumni of Northwestern embody former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern.
Newsweek reached out to the Department of Commerce for remark however didn’t hear again in time for publication.