The New Leader of Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania

Susan Traverso recently became president of Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania. She is the first woman to serve as president of Thiel College in the educational institution’s 150-year history.

Thiel College, in extreme northwestern Pennsylvania, is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church. It enrolls more than 900 students and women make up 46 percent of the student body.

Before being named president of Thiel College, Dr. Traverso was provost, senior vice president, and professor of history at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. Earlier in her career, Dr. Traverso was an associate professor of history and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Redlands in California.

Dr. Thiel is a 1983 graduate of Simmons College in Boston, where she majored in history and communications. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.