The board of trustees of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, has elected Kathleen Murray as the institution’s 14th president. She will take office on July 1, 2015.
Whitman College, in the southeast corner of Washington State, enrolls more than 1,500 students. Women make up 57 percent of the student body.
At the current time, Dr. Murray serves as provost, dean of the faculty, and professor of music at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Before joining the faculty at Macalester College in 2008, she was provost and vice president for academic affairs at Birmingham Southern College in Alabama. She is the former dean of the Conservatory of Music at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin.
Professor Murray is a summa cum laude graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington. She holds a master’s degree in music from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and a doctorate in piano performance and pedagogy from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.