New IWU president prepared for challenges moving forward

Posted on November 15, 2019
Georgia Nugent is IWU’s 20th president. (Neil Doyle/WJBC)

 

By Neil Doyle

BLOOMINGTON – The first woman president at Illinois Wesleyan University is prepared for different challenges as she takes over the top position.

Georgia Nugent was named to the job Thursday after serving as interim president since August.

There will be several challenges moving forward, with one area of focus being diversity, according to Nugent.

“We’ve been quite successful in recent years in attaining a greater diversity in our student body, but in our faculty and staff we have a long way to go,” said Nugent.

“As it’s often cited, but the truth, the pipeline isn’t there.  Every college and university in America is trying to diversify its faculty,” she said.

Nugent said other challenges are maintaining financial stability and making wise choices with available resources.

“For example, it’s easy to say ‘we all need to tighten our belts,’ but if you’re going to be a strong institution you also have to take some degree of risk.  Maybe we tighten our belts over here, but then we decide that we really should invest over there.”

Nugent is the school’s 20th president. She replaces Eric Jensen who retired in May.

Neil Doyle can be reached at [email protected]

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