One Woman Among the Three Finalists for President of Wilkes University

Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, has announced three finalists for the institution’s presidency. One of the three finalists is a woman.

Molly Easo Smith served for two years as president of Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York. This academic year she has been on sabbatical.

Prior to coming to Manhattanville in 2009, she was provost, vice president for academic affairs, and professor of English at Wheaton College. Earlier she was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and a tenured professor at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. She has also taught at Stephen F. Austin University, the University of Aberdeen, Saint Louis University, Ithaca College, and Auburn University.

Dr. Smith holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Madras in India. She earned a Ph.D. in English from Auburn University.

She is the author of Breaking Boundaries: Politics and Play in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (Ashgate Publishing, 1998) and The Darker World Within: Evil in the Tragedies of Shakespeare and his Successors (University of Delaware Press, 1991).

Update: Dr. Smith was not selected as president of Wilkes University. The position was given to Patrick F. Leahy, executive vice president of the University of Scranton.