JACKSON-Claudia Limbert, an executive officer at Pennsylvania State University in DuBois, Pa., is the new president at Mississippi University for Women. Limbert, 61, was named to the post by the state College Board Friday afternoon and was introduced to a crowd of students, faculty and staff on the campus of the Columbus school.
She assumes the presidency in July at a salary of $134,000 and will be MUW’s 13th president.
“I am very pleased to accept the board’s offer to be the next president of Mississippi University for Women,” Limbert said.
“Together we will continue to build on the high academic standards which have garnered MUW national recognition as one of the top ten Southern public liberal arts colleges and hailed as one of the nation’s best values,” she said.
The other finalist for the post was Vicky Carwein, chancellor of the University of Washington in Tacoma, Wash. The finalists were selected from 12 candidates interviewed this month.
Limbert, a married mother of four children, graduated from Bethel College in Kansas in 1978 with triple majors in English, History, and Education.
She received her master’s in Creative Writing in 1980 from Boston University and a Ph.D. in English Literature in 1988.
Limbert served in several different positions at Penn State-Dubois before being named an executive officer. She was in charge of a 150-employee campus and a $6 million annual operating budget.
Interim MUW President Lenore Prather, who took over following Clyda Rent’s June resignation, said Limbert is a good choice.
“I’m very pleased by the selection. The comments I’ve heard indicated that she was very popular with all the university’s constituencies,” Prather told The Commercial Dispatch in Columbus.
Rent had headed the school of 2,300 students since 1989.
Ricki Garrett of Clinton, chairwoman of the MUW presidential search committee, said, “MUW is fortunate to have an executive with Dr. Limbert’s credentials and experience to continue to provide the type of leadership that will make the ‘W’ even stronger.”
MUW was founded in 1884 as the nation’s first public college for women. The school started admitting men in 1982.