UNCG's new chancellor named

CHAPEL HILL -- A former dean at N.C. State University will be the next chancellor at UNC-Greensboro.

Linda Brady, the current provost at the University of Oregon, was elected UNCG's leader by the UNC System's Board of Governors on Thursday.

"It is impossible for me to describe my excitement and enthusiasm on this, the most important day of my professional life," Brady said in remarks following the board's vote.

Brady, 60, begins work Aug. 1 and will be paid $315,000 a year.

As dean of NCSU's College of Humanities and Social Sciences from 2001 to 2006, she boosted that college's stature and visibility, said UNC System President Erskine Bowles, who was clearly pleased to hire someone with a previous tie to North Carolina.

"We all consider this a homecoming for her," he said.

Brady has worked in both higher education and government.

From 1978 to 1985, Brady held several positions in the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Defense. She was a political analyst in the State Department's Office of Disarmament and Arms Control and a special assistant for mutual and balanced force reductions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

She later served as a senior fellow in international security and arms control at the Carter Center of Emory University (1986-87) and as a distinguished professor of national security at the U.S. Military Academy (1991-92).

From 1993 to 2001, Brady led the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she was also a professor of international affairs.

"Over the past 25 years, Linda Brady has accumulated a wealth of leadership experience at highly respected public, urban universities, as well as in the halls of Washington," Bowles said. "At each step along the way, she has proven herself to be an energetic leader who promotes collaboration, creative problem-solving and real-life commitment to scholarship, research, and public service."

Brady said Thursday she was drawn to UNCG in part because of its roots as a women's college, its liberal arts focus and its role as an economic engine for Greensboro and Triad. Projects such as the Gateway University Research Park and a joint school of nanoscience and nanoengineering in partnership with N.C. A&T State University illustrate UNCG's commitment to the community, she said.

"There is no doubt that Greensboro has come to understand, with the loss of its historical industries, that the universities are going to play a critical role moving forward," said Jim Phillips, a Greensboro attorney and chairman of the UNC board. "I think it's not wrong to say that UNCG and [North Carolina A&T], and the two of them in partnership, will make more of a difference in the economic future of our community than anything else."

Brady succeeds the retiring Pat Sullivan, who has been chancellor at UNCG for 13 years.