On Wednesday morning, the Ithaca College Board of Trustees announced that Dr. Shirley M. Collado will be the ninth president of Ithaca College.
Collado was selected by an unanimous vote of the board, according to Tom Grape, the chair of the IC Board of Trustees. Collado will start her tenure as president of Ithaca College on July 1.
“I am deeply honored to have been selected as the next president of such an accomplished, energetic, and deeply engaged community,” said Collado in a press release. “I admire Ithaca College’s devotion to student growth and success, its resolve in facing difficult problems together head-on, and its desire to make sure the college and its graduates make a powerful impact on the world.”
Collado, the daughter of Dominican immigrants and the first in her entire extended family to finish college, said that this moment means an enormous amount to her because she believes in the power of education. She said that her leadership style involves being authentic, visionary, courageous, real, action-oriented and inclusive in order to address difficult challenges.
Jim Nolan, the chair of the search committee, said that the process of finding a new president took longer than expected, but Collado truly embodies the four core values the committee was looking for: collaboration, inclusiveness, respect and commitment to the common good.
Andrew Kosinuk, a member of the search committee from the Office of Public Safety, said that when looking for a candidate, the committee focused on trying to gauge what the relationship would be between this individual and the IC community.
He said that he knew that Collado would be a good fit for the college when Kosinuk heard Collado say that she wanted every student to be able to see themselves in her.
For Kosinuk, Collado is someone who wants to forge real, meaningful relationships with the community and got at the heart of what they were trying to do.
Prof. Claire Gleitman, English, Ithaca College — a member of the search committee — said that Collado has a combination of theory and practice, of liberal arts and professional training, that defines the Ithaca College experience.
Collado holds a B.S. in human and organizational development and psychology from Vanderbilt University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in clinical psychology from Duke University. She has held executive leadership roles in higher education for 16 years and currently serves as the executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer at Rutgers University–Newark.