By: Valerie Bonk
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County will soon have a new president.
The University System of Maryland Board of Regents has appointed Valerie Sheares Ashby as the next president of UMBC. She is currently Dean of Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences.
She will start her new role at UMBC on Aug. 1. She will be the school’s first female president.
Ashby will succeed Freeman Hrabowski, who has led UMBC to national and international acclaim since his appointment as president 30 years ago.
“To follow President Freeman Hrabowski is a distinct privilege,” Ashby said. “He has been a role model for so many in higher education over the last 30 years, including myself. His extraordinary leadership and dedication to UMBC ensures that I am arriving at a university that is already performing at a very high level. There is no ceiling on what we can achieve from here.”
Ashby has been dean of Trinity College of Arts & Sciences since 2015, and was reappointed for a second, five-year term in 2019. She received her bachelor’s and doctorate degrees in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and completed her postdoctoral research at the Universitat Mainz in Germany. Read more at WTOP.
Photo: Valerie Sheares Ashby will be the new president of UMBC. (Courtesy USM)
