Jo Ann Rooney Will Be the First Woman President of Loyola University of Chicago

The board of trustees of Loyola University of Chicago has selected Jo Ann Rooney as the educational institution’s 24th president. She will be the first woman and first lay president of the Catholic university in its 146-year history.

Loyola University, on Chicago’s North Side, enrolls about 10,000 undergraduate students and nearly 6,000 graduate students. Women are 64 percent of the undergraduate student body.

Dr. Rooney has served as senior adviser to the Secretary of Defense. In 2013, she was nominated to be under secretary of the Navy but later withdrew her name from consideration. Earlier in her career, Dr. Rooney was president of Spaulding University in Louisville, Kentucky, and Mount Ida College in Newton, Massachusetts.

Dr. Rooney is a graduate of Boston University and the Suffolk University Law School in Boston. She earned a master’s degree in law at Boston University and a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania.