UC Board Unanimously Elects Beverly Davenport Interim President

As interim president of the University of Cincinnati, Beverly Davenport said that her most important priority is maintaining the University’s momentum and ongoing success. The teamwork and collaboration that has contributed to the university’s record enrollments, enhanced academic profile and advances in equity and inclusion will continue.

She stated, “I am proud and honored to serve as the interim president of the University of Cincinnati. We will continue as a team to focus on student, faculty and staff success. Many hands – working together – are needed to maintain momentum and upward trajectory on behalf of our entire community.”

Davenport has already begun taking on responsibilities of the interim role and will begin full time as interim president July 15, when President Santa J. Ono begins transitioning to his new role as president of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Board Chair Robert E. Richardson Jr. said that the university community will continue “to grow and excel under Interim President Davenport’s leadership. By working together, I have confidence in our future and in our leadership team. Based on her achievements as an academic leader and scholar, Provost Davenport has proven she has the creativity and the ability to lead this great university.”

Since her arrival to UC in July 2013, the university has enjoyed record-setting enrollments along with rising retention and graduation rates. In fact, 40 percent of the growth in baccalaureate degrees awarded in the entire state of Ohio is due to UC’s record graduation rates.

In supporting student success, Davenport has recently focused on reorganizing career education, increased global partnerships and study abroad,  invested in mental health counseling, student services, on-line learning and access and opportunity programs including the formation of the UC Summer Scholars Academy, a summer residential program for Hughes STEM High School students. Recently, she championed a Textbook Affordability Initiative that has gained state-wide attention for helping students save millions of dollars and overseen operations to award financial aid to more than 30,000 UC undergraduates. 

She has also been a partner with Athletics Director Mike Bohn in using mobile devices  to improve athletes’ study habits and access to study materials while traveling. These programs have resulted in record improvements in athletes’ academic performance. Davenport and Bohn have also partnered to use athletic facilities for innovative classroom spaces such as the newly renovated Nippert Stadium.

During her tenure, Davenport has launched aggressive faculty recruitment initiatives, including a $60 million

Cluster Hiring Initiative

, a

Strategic Hiring Opportunity Program

and a

Dual Career Assistance Program

that has increased the number of women and underrepresented minority faculty. The number of female faculty hired has nearly doubled since she came to the university.

Another of her recent innovations is the launch of the Urban Futures Cluster hiring initiative designed to recruit faculty whose research, teaching and scholarship focuses on opportunities and challenges facing urban areas.

Prior to joining UC, Davenport served as vice provost for faculty affairs at Purdue University, where she launched the Susan Bulkely Butler Leadership Center and held a distinguished professorship by the same name. She has been a consultant to IBM, Dow Corning, GE and a number of nonprofits on communication and innovation and is known internationally for her work on workplace civility, organizational assessment, and health communication including work on telehospice and telemedicine.

Davenport is an award-winning teacher with more than $18 million of funding from the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Education, MacArthur Foundation and others.

This year she joins the leadership team for Go Red for Women and serves on the Board of Directors for St. Vincent de Paul Cincinnati and the UC Research Institute.

See

more

on her background.