Pamela Whitten didn’t grow up with dreams of being a university president.
“You didn’t see this,” she said. “… I graduated in 1985 as an undergraduate. It would never have entered my mind to think about being a university president. I never saw a woman university president, particularly of a large public institution.”
Neither had Indiana University, in the 200 years since it was founded, until recently.
In July of 2021, Whitten became IU’s 19th — and first female — president following the retirement of her predecessor, Michael A. McRobbie.
She visited Columbus on Wednesday, making stops at IUPUC’s campus and IU Bloomington’s J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program in The Republic building downtown.
The leader’s scheduled itinerary also included time at the Columbus Learning Center, sessions with staff, administrators and students, a meeting with the local business community at Columbus City Hall; and a driving tour of the city.
Whitten most recently served as president at Kennesaw State University. Her resume includes, but is not limited to, more than 15 years at Michigan State University in a variety of roles and four years at University of Georgia as senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. She is also an internationally recognized expert in telemedicine.
Whitten described her route to working in education as “untraditional.” After earning an undergraduate and master’s degree, she worked for about seven to eight years in corporate communications and had two of her three children.
When she was 30, she decided to return to school to get a Ph.D. so that she could become a college professor and do research. As Whitten stepped into these roles and enjoyed them, she also encountered opportunities for administration that grew bigger over time.
“One day, you wake up and you realize that a lot of the satisfaction you’re getting out of your job is the work that you’re doing to facilitate things for other people — students and faculty and staff,” she said. “And so, eventually I became a dean at Michigan State, and that was the first big-time transition, if you will, into administration.”
While Whitten was not affiliated with IU before becoming president, she had visited its campuses in the past, particularly during vacations in Indiana, and was “aware of what a wonderful place Indiana University is.” When the opening was announced for a new leader at IU, it was a dream job, she said.
One of her favorite parts of being IU’s president is being in communication with others.
“It’s wonderful to come to Columbus and certainly have the chance to see things, but the most important part of this trip is the conversations that I’m having with people and the opportunity first and foremost, frankly, to hear from students about their experiences,” she said.
She also spoke with faculty and staff during her trip.
In these various discussions, some questions still remain about how the pandemic is continuing to change education, she said. However, the students she spoke with are happy to be returning to in-person instruction locally.
IU has managed the pandemic well, Whitten said, both in terms of education and safety.
“Right now, that means if you are inside of a building or classroom, you wear a mask because we want to take care of each other, but we have extraordinary vaccination rates,” she said. “And so that’s an important tool at IU as well.”
As she steps into the role of president, Whitten said her goals include fostering student success in terms of graduation, retention and experiences that prepare them for the future; continuing important research and discovery; and making sure the university takes “a leading role in terms of having a positive impact on the state” by enhancing economic success and public health.
It’s poignant to be Indiana University’s first female president, Whitten said. She reflected that in the years since she graduated from college, there have been dramatic changes across the country in regards to female leadership in education.
“We certainly have a ways to go still, but it’s just dramatically different than it was 30 years ago,” she said. “Nobody blinked when I was named the president of Indiana University as a female, other than to be excited. … And I think that that speaks to the state of where we are.”
