On paper, Brenau University's requirements for filling its top academic post seemed to be a daunting challenge.
Brenau's shopping list called for someone with background and experience in single-gender education who could help preserve the integrity and improve the stature of a women's college; experience building coeducational adult learning undergraduate and graduate programs at multiple campus locations and online; a person steeped in liberal arts and professional preparation; a seasoned university classroom profession who also has had a successful run in higher education administration; one who would be both chief advocate for and the respect-commanding and visionary leader of an eclectic faculty; a person who "plays well with others" but is also not timid about standing ground when necessary; and, finally, one who honors tradition but embraces change.
When Brenau began reviewing candidates, Nancy F. Krippel came to the table with all the right stuff. On July 5, 2011, she became provost and vice president for academic affairs. Krippel moved from Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Va., where she is dean of adult and graduate studies and associate dean of the college.
Krippel describes her management style as "distinctly collaborative and transparent" and reports that her principal at Oxford University, where she participated in a teaching exchange, referred to her as "incorrigibly cheerful."
She earned her undergraduate degree in 1980 from single-gender Barat College in Lake Forest, Ill., and a Master of Arts and Ph.D. from Loyola University Chicago. She is a professor of English, specializing in 18th century English novels. Before joining Mary Baldwin in 2003, Krippel was associate provost at Longwood University in Farmville, Va., and was the top academic officer at Barat, where she also was on the faculty and director of the study abroad program.
Krippel believes Brenau is on the right course in its strategic plan to double enrollment by 2025 primarily through graduate studies and programs aimed at nontraditional students - and through expansion of online academic programs. "Brenau's vision," she says, "is professional preparation with the fundamentals of liberal arts at the core and, when you fold that philosophy and that 133-year tradition into online programs, there is no way for others to match it."
