Drexel University is a private research university with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Drexel's undergraduate school was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a financier and philanthropist. Founded as Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry, it was renamed Drexel Institute of Technology in 1936, before assuming its current name in 1970. As of 2020, more than 24,000 students were enrolled in over 70 undergraduate programs and more than 100 master's, doctoral, and professional programs at the university.
Donna Edna Shalala is an American politician and academic who served in the Carter and Clinton administrations, as well as in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2019 to 2021. Shalala is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which she was awarded in 2008, and, on August 16, 2023, assumed the role of Interim President of The New School, a university in New York City.
The University of Maryland Global Campus is a public university in Adelphi, Maryland. It is the largest institution in the University System of Maryland Established in 1947 with origins in the College of Special and Continuation Studies of the University of Maryland, College Park for mid-career working professionals and non-traditional students, UMGC offers online, hybrid and face-to-face instruction at education centers across the Washington–Baltimore metropolitan area, throughout Maryland, and across the world.
Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA) is a private historically black Catholic university in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is the only Catholic HBCU and, upon the canonization of Katharine Drexel in 2000, became the first Catholic university founded by a saint.
Irving King Jordan is an American educator who became the first deaf president of Gallaudet University in 1988 after the Deaf President Now protest. Gallaudet is the world's only university with all programs and services designed specifically for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
Dr. Samuel H. Smith was the eighth president of Washington State University, serving for fifteen years.
Marilyn Ware was the U.S. Ambassador to Finland from March 2006 to March 2008.
Robert Laurent Caret is an American academic and university administrator. He is the former chancellor of the University System of Maryland and former president of San José State University, Towson University and the University of Massachusetts System.
Janet Dudley-Eshbach, Ph.D. became president of Salisbury University in Salisbury, Maryland in June 2000. She is the eighth president and the first woman to hold that office in the seventy-five year history of the university. In 2005, she was named one of Maryland's Top 100 Women in 2005 by the Maryland Daily Record. She retired in June 2018.
Clara M. Lovett is an American educator and the former president of Northern Arizona University.
Drexel University College of Medicine is the medical school of Drexel University, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The medical school represents the consolidation of two medical schools: Hahnemann Medical College, originally founded as the nation's first college of homeopathy, and the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, the first U.S. medical school for women, which became the Medical College of Pennsylvania when it admitted men in 1970; these institutions merged in 1993, became affiliated with Drexel University College of Medicine in 1998, and were fully absorbed into the university in 2002. With one of the nation's largest enrollments for a private medical school, Drexel University College of Medicine is the second most applied-to medical school in the United States. It is ranked no. 83 in research by U.S. News & World Report.
Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust is an American historian who served as the 28th president of Harvard University, the first woman in that role. She was Harvard's first president since 1672 without an undergraduate or graduate degree from Harvard and the first to have been raised in the South. Faust is also the founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She has been ranked among the world's most powerful women by Forbes, including as the 33rd most powerful in 2014.
Patricia McGuire is the 14th president of Trinity Washington University in Washington D.C.; she was appointed president in 1989. She is credited with successfully transitioning the institution from one that primarily served elites and was on the verge of collapse to one that primarily caters to underprivileged students, mostly local black and Hispanic women.
Karen Middleton is an American politician who served as a member of the Colorado House of Representatives from 2004 to 2008 and 2008 to 2011.
Farah Pandith is an American academic of Indian descent. She was appointed the first-ever Special Representative to Muslim Communities in June 2009 by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The position was made specifically for her after she briefed Secretary Clinton about her work in the Bush administration. She had the rare distinction of being a political appointee for two Republican presidents and President Obama. When she was the Special Representative she traveled to almost 100 countries. After serving under both Secretaries Clinton and John Kerry, she left government. She said she came to Washington after 9/11 again and wanted to serve – she left after more than a decade in public service. She worked at USAID and then went to the National Security Council and then the U.S. Department of State. When she left in 2014, she returned to her home state of Massachusetts.
Kevin J. Manning is the former president of Stevenson University, the former Villa Julie College and the third largest independent university in Maryland. He was inaugurated as the fourth president of Villa Julie College on October 28, 2000, succeeding Carolyn Manuszak. He resigned from Stevenson University on November 29, 2016.
Lynn Hardy Yeakel was an American administrator and political figure. She was the Director of Drexel University College of Medicine's Institute for Women's Health and Leadership and held the Betty A. Cohen Chair in Women's Health. Yeakel conducted an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1992.
Elinor "Ellie" Miller Greenberg was an American author educationalist and speech pathologist, an expert in the field of adult education and experiential learning, as well as a former civil rights activist. She saw access to education as a social justice issue, and spent over thirty years creating higher education programs for non-traditional students. She headed the University Without Walls program in the 1970s; created a weekend BSN program for nurses in rural Colorado; established a degree program for Colorado prison inmates and ex-offenders; and established online master's degree programs for nurses in the 1990s. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 2010.
Kathy J. Warden is an American business executive who has been chief executive officer (CEO) and president of Northrop Grumman since 2019.
Dorothy Ann Ortner Horrell is an American educator, university administrator, and philanthropy administrator. From 2016 to 2020, she held the post of Chancellor of University of Colorado Denver. She was previously president of both Red Rocks Community College and the Colorado Community College System, and president and CEO of the Bonfils–Stanton Foundation. In 2009, she was appointed by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper to the Colorado State University Board of Governors, which she also served as chair for a two-year term. Active on the boards of many community organizations, she was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 2018.
