The board of regents for higher education for the state of Connecticut has named Zulma R. Toro as the thirteenth president of Central Connecticut State University in New Britain. She will become president on January 3, 2017. The university, just west of the state capital of Hartford, enrolls about 10,000 undergraduate students and more than 2,000 graduate students. According to the latest Department of Education data, women make up 47 percent of the undergraduate student body.
Zulma R. Toro is executive vice chancellor and provost at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She has held this post since 2013. And since July she has been serving as interim chancellor of the university. Previously, Dr. Toro was dean of the College of Engineering at Wichita State University in Kansas. Earlier, she was dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of New Haven in Connecticut and chancellor of the Mayaguez campus of the University of Puerto Rico.
Dr. Toto is a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico, where she majored in industrial engineering. She holds a master’s degree in industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in industrial and systems engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
Earlier this year, Dr. Toto was a finalist for president of South Dakota State University.