New president picked for Westminster

Staff report

NEW WILMINGTON, PA.

Westminster College Trustees unanimously voted to appoint Kathy Brittain Richardson, provost and professor of communication at Berry College, Mount Berry, Ga., to become Westminster’s 15th and first female president.

Richardson will assume her new duties July 1.

“We are thrilled that Dr. Kathy Richardson will lead the college, and look forward to welcoming her into the Westminster community,” said Deborah Platt Majoras (’85), trustees chairwoman. “Through 30-plus years of academic experience, she has helped prepare leaders of intellect and character through her intense drive to provide a holistic education steeped in the liberal arts, her enormous energy and creativity, and her strong sense of community and collaboration.”

Richardson said she is honored to be selected for the position and looks forward to working with faculty, staff, trustees and alumni to provide a challenging and rewarding education for Westminster students.

As provost at Berry College, Richardson serves as the chief academic officer, which includes responsibility for coordinating the dean’s management of the four academic schools and providing oversight to some 250 faculty and academic staff.

She has been a transformational leader, having coordinated the development of Berry’s two most-recent strategic plans, and previously had leadership positions that have included responsibility for oversight for academic advising and the registrar’s office, enrollment management, faculty research and sponsored programs, academic technology and the offices of first-year experience and academic support.

As a faculty member in the communication department, she was awarded the top faculty teaching, scholarship and leadership awards from the college, including the Carden Award, the Garrett Award, the Teaching Excellence Award and the Martindale Award. She was named an honorary member of the Berry Alumni Association in 2014.

Richardson co-authored “Media Ethics: Cases and Moral Reasoning,” which is soon to be published in its 10th edition, and “Applied Public Relations: Cases in Stakeholder Management,” now in its third edition.

Richardson has published journal articles and book chapters in media ethics, product promotion, visual imagery, communication pedagogy and student-press regulation. In 2014, she was recognized as the Alumna Scholar of the Year by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication of the University of Georgia.

In 2012, she received the Professor of the Year award from the Small Programs Division of AEJMC.

“The search committee was overwhelmed by Dr. Richardson’s stellar qualifications, demonstrated through her career-long commitment to leadership, combined with her management experience and excellence in academics,” said John T. Weisel, trustee and co-chairman of the presidential search committee. “We are confident she will continue to enhance and grow the comprehensive liberal arts education experience that the college provides its students for years to come.”

Richardson earned a bachelor’s degree in communication and religion/philosophy, summa cum laude, from Shorter College, and a master’s degree in journalism and a doctorate in mass communication from the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. She completed additional graduate coursework in communication at the University of Oklahoma.

She is married to Randy Richardson, director of forensics at Berry College, and she has two adult stepchildren, Ashton and Lauren.

Richardson replaces Richard H. Dorman, who announced his retirement in July. Dorman has served as 14th president since 2008.