Penny Rue, vice president for campus life at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was elected board chair of NASPA, the nation’s leading organization for student affairs professionals in higher education. Dr. Rue has been a member of the organization since 1977 and has served on the board since 2015.
NASPA was founded at the University of Wisconsin in 1919 as the Conference of Deans and Advisers of Men. In 1951, the organization was renamed the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA). Today the organization is known simply as NASPA. It has 15,000 members in all 50 states and 25 foreign countries.
Dr. Rue has been on the staff at Wake Forest University since 2013. Earlier, she was vice chancellor of student affairs at the University of California, San Diego.
Dr. Rue is a magna cum laude graduate of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where she double majored in English and religion. She holds a master’s degree in student personnel services from Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in counseling and personnel services from the University of Maryland.