Amy C. Novak Named the Fourteenth President of St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa

Amy C. Novak will be the fourteenth president of St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. She will take office this summer.

St. Ambrose University, affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, enrolls about 2,250 undergraduate students and just over 700 graduate students, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 55 percent of the undergraduate student body.

“I am honored and humbled by this choice, and very excited to be part of the Ambrose community. I look forward to continuing to find ways to co-develop a strong future for the university and the many communities it serves,” Dr. Novak said.

Since 2013, Dr. Novak has been president of Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota, a private university of 948 students founded in 1885 and affiliated with the United Methodist Church. She joined the university in November 2003 as a grant administrator in the TRIO Student Services Program. Before being appointed president, she was provost from 2007 to 2013 and vice president for enrollment management from 2004 to 2007.

Dr. Novak is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where she majored in history. She holds a master’s degree in social and applied economics from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a doctorate in interdisciplinary leadership from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.