FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 13, 2006
Contact: Anika Mitchell Perkins
(662) 329-7124

MUW provost accepts position as chief academic officer for South Dakota system
  
COLUMBUS, Miss. – Dr. Sam Gingerich, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Mississippi University for Women, has accepted a position as senior academic administrator for the South Dakota Board of Regents. He will remain at MUW until the first of June.
   
MUW President Claudia A. Limbert said, “I am deeply sorry that Dr. Gingerich is leaving MUW as he has been a most remarkable provost and an excellent academic leader who has provided great service to the university. We are, however, pleased that he has been a part of the MUW family and wish him well.”
   
Highlights of his tenure at MUW include reorganization from divisions to colleges and the rewriting of the majority of the policies this required, development of an academic master plan, initiation of the Roger F.  Wicker Center for Creative Learning and the Southern Women’s Institute and development and implementation of dual credit agreements with Columbus schools.   
   
Gingerich said, “It has been my privilege to work with the dedicated faculty and staff of MUW. It has been a pleasure to be affiliated with such a well respected and well recognized university and to work daily with some of the best academicians I have known. While the position I have accepted offers some incredible opportunities, I will truly miss MUW.”
   
Prior to joining MUW, he was at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colo., for six years. He began there as vice president for academic affairs and served for a time as the college’s interim president in 2003-04.
   
A former Northern State University administrator, Gingerich spent 13 years in South Dakota’s public higher education system.
   
He has 31 years of experience as an administrator, professor and research associate in universities and colleges in Colorado, South Dakota, Nevada, Montana and New York.
   
Gingerich graduated from Montana State University in Bozeman with a doctor of philosophy in chemistry. He earned his master of science in chemistry from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and his bachelor of arts in chemistry from Goshen College in Goshen, Ind.