New ACE president an experienced leader

University Business, April, 2008

MOLLY CORBETT BROAD WILL BECOME THE American Council of Education's twelfth president on May 1, but she takes the lead as the first woman to head the 90-year-old organization.

"It's not only a great honor but a special privilege to serve an organization Like ACE," says Broad, who has served in a number of administrative and executive positions at various universities.

She was president of the University of North Carolina system from 1997 to 2006, during a period in which minority enrollment grew at more than double the rate of the student body. Broad encouraged the creation of a need-based financial aid program for in-state undergraduates and the expansion of distance-education offerings.

In 2000, she helped spearhead the passage of a $3.1 billion bond issue to finance $2.5 billion in capital construction and renovation on UNC campuses, along with $600 million for the state's community colleges. At the time, this was the largest bond referendum ever in U.S. higher education.

Prior to UNC, Broad, an economist, served as senior vice chancellor for administration/finance and then as executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer for the California State University system. She was chief executive officer for Arizona's three-campus university system from 1985 to 1992. In 1976, she took a yearlong absence from her budgeting and planning office position at Syracuse University to become the deputy director of the New York State Commission on the Future of Postsecondary Education. Currently she is a professor in the School of Government at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.--M.H.