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2009 Donna Shavlik Award Recipient—Peggy Ryan Williams

Kathleen Rountree, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Ithaca College presents the 2009 Donna Shavlik Award to Peggy Ryan Williams, President Emerita, Ithaca College. Photo taken by Lisa Helfert for ACE.

Peggy R. Williams spent her childhood in Canada, where she began her education, earning a bachelor's degree from St. Michael's College of the University of Toronto. She also holds a master of education degree from the University of Vermont and a doctorate in administration, planning, and social policy from Harvard University. She is a citizen of both the United States and Canada.

Before entering the field of education, Williams was a social worker for the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont and the Monroe County Department of Social Services in New York. She went on to hold various positions within the Vermont State Colleges system and later joined Trinity College in Burlington, Vermont, as an associate professor, ultimately becoming chair of the business and economics department and associate academic dean. Prior to being named the seventh—and first female—president of Ithaca College in 1997, she was president of Lyndon State College in Lyndonville, Vermont, for eight years.

Her accomplishments at Ithaca include:

• Leading the largest comprehensive campaign in Ithaca history, which surpassed its goal by $30 million;
• Conducting a multiyear self-study process for reaccredidation.
• Stabilizing enrollment at 6,260 undergraduates and 400 graduate students, while simultaneously raising the overall academic profile of the student body.
• Creating a facilities master plan that included construction of the Dorothy D. and Roy H. Park Center for Business and Sustainable Enterprise, one of the first 100 buildings in the world to receive platinum LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, the highest level granted by the U.S. Green Building Council.
• Establishing the Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity and the Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Education.
• Adding a host of new academic programs, including master's degree programs in teaching and business administration and the college's first doctoral program in physical therapy.

Felice Noodleman, Executive Director of Education, The New York Times Company; Donna Phillips, Director, OWHE; Peggy Ryan Williams, President Emerita, Ithaca College; and former OWHE Director, Donna Shavlik. Photo taken by Lisa Helfert for ACE.

Williams has been a leading proponent of sustainability, having signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, and she has set an example with regard to community service, having instituted the annual Celebration of Service. Additionally, she frequently presented a workshop on humor in the workplace for the college's LeaderShip program, and the college instituted the Peggy R. Williams Award for Academic and Community Leadership in her honor.

At Ithaca College, she served as a member of the NCAA Division III Presidents Council as well as its Subcommittee on Gender and Diversity Issues, and she served on the boards of directors of the Canada-U.S. Foundation for Educational Exchange (Fulbright) and the American Council on Education, for which she chaired the Commission on Women in Higher Education. She has also participated in Women Swimmin', a swim across Cayuga Lake to benefit Hospicare and Palliative Care Services, and the AIDS Ride for Life.

Peggy Ryan Williams addressed a full house at the 2009 Women's Leadership Dinner which took place on Saturday, February 7, 2009, the Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington, DC. Photo taken by Lisa Helfert for ACE.

When Williams stepped down from the presidency of the College, the board of trustees presented her with an honorary degree and endowed a new discussion symposium in her honor. The Peggy R. Williams Difficult Dialogues Symposium will explore intellectual diversity and academic freedom through discussions by prominent global leaders who will present on important, far-reaching topics.

She is an accomplished athlete (she was once the girls' yo-yo champion of the west island of Montreal) who swims and bikes regularly and occasionally hikes, skis, golfs, sails, and plays tennis.

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This page last updated: 03/06/2009