Eastern Oregon University Names Kelly A. Ryan as Its Next President

Kelly A. Ryan was appointed president of Eastern Oregon University in La Grande. She will begin her new duties on July 1.

Eastern Oregon University enrolls just over 2,500 undergraduate students and nearly 300 graduate students, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 60 percent of the undergraduate student body.

“I’m incredibly grateful to the board for their approval and I want to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who participated in this process,” Dr. Ryan said. “What I saw when I visited was an internal and external community that is dedicated to EOU’s Ascent. I couldn’t help but be swept up in your enthusiasm for EOU and the hard work that’s gone on there and in the community.”

Dr. Ryan currently serves as the interim chancellor at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany. Before being named interim chancellor, Dr. Ryan served in several roles at the university, including executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, dean of the school of social sciences, coordinator for the department of history, and professor of history. She is the author of Everyday Crimes: Social Violence and Civil Rights in Early America (New York University Press, 2019) and Regulating Passion: Sexuality and Patriarchal Rule in Massachusetts, 1700-1830 (Oxford University Press, 2014).

Dr. Ryan is a graduate of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where she majored in history. She holds a master’s degree in history from Boston College and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland College Park.