Valerie Ashby, dean of Duke's Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, was named president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County on Monday. She will leave Duke on June 30 and begin her role at UMBC on Aug. 1.
Ashby has been dean of Trinity since 2015. During her tenure, she led initiatives that helped Trinity more deeply invest in faculty recruitment and development, philanthropy and student engagement. She came to Duke from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she served as the chair of the chemistry department.
"[Ashby] has been a transformative dean of Trinity College and a remarkable citizen and leader at Duke University,” Provost Sally Kornbluth said in a press release. “She is a role model for students and faculty alike and has been a driving force for inclusive excellence in education, scholarship, and the student experience. We will miss her as a colleague, but I could not be more excited about her extraordinary opportunity at UMBC.”
Kornbluth said in the press release that an interim dean of Trinity will be appointed shortly and that Duke will soon begin a national search for a successor.
Ashby did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Chronicle.
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Leah Boyd is a Pratt senior and a social chair of The Chronicle's 118th volume. She was previously editor-in-chief for Volume 117.