KSU President Makes Most Influential List

KENNESAW, GA -- Kennesaw State University President Pamela Whitten has been named to Engineering Georgia magazine’s Top 100 Influential Women in Georgia list, recognizing her role in empowering other female professionals in the industry across the state.

Whitten, who was named Kennesaw State’s fifth president in June 2018, was selected by a panel of industry leaders and Engineering Georgia editorial board members. The list “celebrates the diversity of female leaders, policy makers and visionaries who have spent their careers changing Georgia’s landscape for the better,” according to the publication.

Last year, in the publication’s inaugural Top 100 list, Kennesaw State faculty members, Kathryn Bedette, associate professor of architecture, and Nancy Turner, senior lecturer of civil engineering, were recognized for their contributions to the state’s engineering community.

As president, Whitten leads Georgia’s largest R2 doctoral research institution, a designation that puts KSU among the top six percent of colleges and universities nationwide that are classified as either R1 or R2. The university is home to 13 colleges, including the College of Architecture and Construction Management and the Southern Polytechnic College of Engineering and Engineering Technology, the second largest engineering college in the state.

KSU’s College of Engineering and Engineering Technology is ranked by U.S. News & World Report among the nation’s top undergraduate engineering programs and online graduate engineering programs.

n her role as senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of Georgia, the position she held prior to being named president at KSU, Whitten established the Women’s Leadership Initiative. Recently, she tapped Coles College of Business Dean Dr. Kathy Schwaig to serve as the University’s new provost and vice president for academic affairs. Schwaig becomes part of Whitten's leadership cabinet, which is now nearly 65% female.

In addition to her leadership positions in Georgia, Whitten served as dean of the College of Communication Arts & Sciences at Michigan State University. She is an internationally recognized expert in the field of telemedicine – the remote delivery of health care services and information – and has conducted research with funding from multiple state and federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Commerce. Whitten has published two books and more than 100 peer-reviewed research articles and book chapters.

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