Update (Dec. 10): Roberts Wesleyan College will become the ninth CCCU college to currently have a female president.
A search committee selected Deana Porterfield as the 11th president of the Rochester-based school in upstate New York and the third president of Northeastern Seminary. Porterfield, who will take office in July 2014, previously worked at Azusa Pacific University for 24 years in a number of leadership positions, including vice president for enrollment management and executive vice president.
Meanwhile, two updates to CT's previous roundup of women CCCU presidents (see below).
Carol Taylor has left Vanguard University to become president of Evangel University, a CCCU member school in Springfield, Missouri, which now consolidates Assemblies of God Theological Seminary and Central Bible College. In addition, The King's University College in Edmonton, Alberta, appointed Melanie Humphreys as its president, effective since July, raising the total number of CCCU schools in North America now led by women to nine.
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[First published on Apr. 29, 2013, at 11:46 a.m.]
Trustees at Huntington University have elected Sherilyn Emberton as the Christian college's next president.
When Emberton begins at the Indiana school on June 1, she will become the first female president in Huntington's history. She will succeed G. Blair Dowden, who has led the university for 22 years.
Emberton, who currently serves as vice president for academic affairs at East Texas Baptist University, also will join the somewhat-elite ranks of female presidents within the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). Of the 111 CCCU member schools in North America, only 6 schools currently have female presidents (approximately 5 percent, compared to a 23-percent national average), including:
Sandra Gray at Asbury University;
Corliss McGee at Eastern Nazarene College;
Shirley Mullen at Houghton College;
Kim Phipps at Messiah College;
Carol Taylor at Vanguard University;
Andrea Cook at Warner Pacific University.
Mullen and Phipps were both named in CT's recent 50 Women You Should Know cover story.
Women have long lamented the lack of female leadership in higher education, and Wheaton College students advocated for a female president during the school's presidential search in 2009.
Editor's note: This post has been corrected to properly name Asbury University and to include Evangel University in the list of CCCU schools.
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