CULLOWHEE — An experienced higher education leader from Georgia will be the next chancellor of Western Carolina University.
The UNC System announced Thursday that it selected Kelli R. Brown to be the university's 12th chancellor. She'll be the first woman to lead the university permanently.
Brown since 2013 has been provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Georgia College & State University, Georgia's public liberal arts university of about 7,000 students.
In 2016, Brown served for about six months as interim president of Georgia's Valdosta State University when that school's previous interim leader, Cecil Staton, left to become chancellor at East Carolina University. Brown returned to the provost's job at Georgia College in 2017.
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Previously, Brown worked from 2007 to 2012 at the University of Florida, where she was a health education professor, associate dean and interim dean of the health and human performance college. She held various faculty and administrative roles at the University of South Florida, Illinois State University and Western Illinois University during a higher education career she began in the late 1980s.
A graduate of the University of Toledo, Brown earned her doctorate in health education from Southern Illinois University. Her research interests, according to a UNC System news release, include adolescent and youth health issues, school and community partnerships and prevention marketing.
In a statement, Brown said the WCU job "is an opportunity of a lifetime" and said she's impressed with WCU's focus on student success and access to a college education. UNC President Bill Roper said Brown had demonstrated "a keen focus on student and faculty success" throughout her career.
Brown will succeed David Belcher, who died in June after a two-year battle with brain cancer. Alison Morrison-Shetlar, WCU's provost and a former dean at Elon University, had been serving as interim chancellor. Brown will start July 1 at a salary of $325,000.
WCU says it will introduce Brown to campus Monday afternoon.
The UNC Board of Governors picked Brown from three finalists selected by a 21-person search committee made up of WCU trustees and employees and community members.
WCU was supposed to have hired a new chancellor last summer, but that search broke down at the last minute when Board of Governors member Tom Fetzer asked a search firm to do further research on the top candidate for the job.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported in July that several other board members accused Fetzer of violating the confidentiality of the search process by revealing the candidate's name to an outside firm. Fetzer, according to the newspaper, said there was "a misrepresentation of fact" on the candidate's resume. The unnamed candidate withdrew from consideration, and WCU launched a second search.