Alison Morrison-Shetlar Chosen as the First Woman President of the University of Lynchburg in Virginia

The board of trustees of the University of Lynchburg in Virginia has chosen Alison Morrison-Shetlar as the educational institution’s 11th president. When she takes office in July 2020, she will be the first woman and the first person born outside the United States to serve as president of the University of Lynchburg.

The University of Lynchburg enrolls just over 2,000 undergraduate students and just under 1,000 graduate students according to the latest data reported to the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 61 percent of the student body. The University of Lynchburg was founded as Virginia Christian College in 1903. It became Lynchburg Colleg in 1919 and transitioned to university status in 2018.

In accepting the appointment, D. Morrison-Shetlar said that she was “honored to have been selected to be the University of Lynchburg’s 11th president and will work with passion, enthusiasm, respect, and humor to ensure the success of the mission, vision, and goals of the University.”

In 2014, Dr. Morrison-Shetlar became the provost at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina. Earlier in her career, she served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Elon University in North Carolina, vice provost and dean of undergraduate studies at the University of Central Florida, and director of faculty development at Georgia Southern University.

A native of Scotland, Morrison-Shetlar earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry and a doctorate in biomedical science from Dundee College of Technology, now Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland..