Date: February 17, 2007
Governors State University
Contact: Charles Connolly
Phone: (708) 534-7090
Email: c-connolly@govst.edu
Or
Eric Matanyi
Phone: (708)534-4044
Email: e-matanyi@govst.edu
Fax: (708) 534-8399
For Immediate Release
University Park, Illinois, February 17, 2007 – The Governors State University Board of Trustees announced today that it has selected Elaine P. Maimon, Chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), as the university’s next president. Dr. Maimon will succeed Stuart I. Fagan, who will retire at the end of June 2007, after leading the university for the past seven years.
Prior to joining the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2004, she served from 1996 to 2004 as Provost (Chief Campus Executive Officer) at Arizona State University West and Vice President of Arizona State University as a whole. She is an active scholar in English and a founder of Writing Across the Curriculum, a national initiative launched more than 25 years ago to integrate the teaching of writing into all courses, regardless of discipline.
Dr. Maimon’s selection concludes a national search that involved consultation with faculty, students, staff, the Governors State University Foundation, The Center for Performing Arts, alumni, and others.
Bruce Friefeld, Chair the Board of Trustees, said, “This is a great day for Governors State University. We are very pleased to welcome Elaine Maimon to the GSU community and to the region. She brings with her a record of high accomplishment in higher education and a contagious enthusiasm for access to higher education for the life-long learner.” He added, “The Board was very impressed with the breadth of her interests in higher education, her leadership in academic circles, and her proven ability to design and implement a vision for institutional change and future development of the university. She is uniquely qualified to continue the outstanding leadership provided by Stuart Fagan during the past seven years.”
Dr. Maimon expressed both her commitment to GSU’s distinctive mission and her excitement as she joins the university. “Since its founding in 1969, GSU has been a specialist in creating programs that make a university education accessible to all. It has taken almost 40 years for the rest of higher education to catch up with GSU.
“My life-long goal, ever since I was a scholarship student at the University of Pennsylvania, has been to make it possible for students to be the first in their families to attend college. Increasing access to higher education has been the major motivation for my work at UAA, and I am looking forward to continuing that work at GSU.”
She added, “Above all, I am attracted by GSU’s ‘can-do’ spirit, encouraged by a conscientious, informed, and visionary Board of Trustees and a dedicated faculty and staff. With a tradition of innovation, GSU is nimble, open, and flexible. I look forward to serving as president of GSU for many years.”
Dr. Maimon received her B.A. in English, Magna Cum Laude, in 1966, her M.A. in English in 1967, and her Ph.D. in English, with distinction, in 1970, all from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
She is married to Mort Maimon, a former teacher and college professor and now a full-time writer. They have two children and three grandchildren.
