(NAME-MCE) New Chief for State College Group

[Anselmo Villanueva]

 [image: Muriel A. Howard]
<http://www.insidehighered.com/var/ihe/storage/images/media/news_images/2009/03/howard/3948546-1-eng-US/howard_full.jpg>
 New Chief for State College Group  April 1, 2009

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/01/aascu

WASHINGTON -- Glass ceilings are cracking across this city's higher
education associations.

A little over a year after Molly Corbett Broad's
hiring<http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/01/16/broad>at the
American Council on Education made her the first woman to run one of
higher education's six major "presidential" associations, the American
Association of State Colleges and Universities on Tuesday named Muriel A.
Howard <http://www.aascu.org/media/media_releases/release09march31.htm> as
its new president, replacing Constantine W. (Deno) Curris. Howard, now
president <http://www.buffalostate.edu/president/about.xml> of the State
University of New York's College at Buffalo, will be the first black female
-- and the first member of a racial minority group -- to head one of the six
associations.

"Boy, will I miss my students," Howard said in a telephone interview after
her appointment was announced Tuesday. "But I'm eager for the opportunity to
be able to help shape policy and essentially continue the work I've been
doing -- taking the 11,000 students I have, and multiplying by 430
institutions" -- the four-year public
colleges<http://www.aascu.org/association/members/index.htm>that make
up AASCU's membership.

Howard has spent virtually her whole career in Buffalo, the last 13 as
president of SUNY's state college there and the previous 23 as a faculty
member and then senior administrator at SUNY-Buffalo, the city's major
research institution. She saw firsthand, she said, how important higher
education institutions are to their surrounding areas, as ladders of
opportunity for students, engines for local and state economies, and
providers of services for residents.

She said that she was drawn to the prospect of helping AASCU's member
colleges carry out the association's goals of being "student-centered"
institutions and "stewards of place," to "make sure that we deploy and ask
our faculty and students to help out in their communities."

There might be better -- safer -- times to seek a position of national
leadership, Howard acknowledged in response to a reporter's question, given
the economic downturn and the financial troubles facing many colleges at a
time of waning state support. "It's not going to be easy, and there's a lot
of hard work to be done at a lot of levels," she said. But the key will be
to "find the opportunity within the challenge," an opportunity presented in
part by the fact that the country's leaders are increasingly looking to
higher education to help get the country out of the mess it's in.

"As a nation, we have to keep higher education at the top of our agenda, or
all the goals that are being proposed will not be met," she said. "We're the
organizations and engines that make it possible for those problems to be
solved."

Howard said she was honored to break through a barrier, following ACE's
Broad and, more recently, her soon-to-be neighbor at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue. "I just hope we are the last generation of firsts, but I hope there
are many more such firsts," Howard said. "I do think we should pay attention
to it when those steps are made, as happened in the presidential election.
Those role models and opportunities are so important, and so many people
helped me and encouraged me.

"If I am a role model for other young women, for children of color, I'm
ready."
 — Doug Lederman <doug.lederman at insidehighered.com>