current media releases

For immediate release
2-9-06
For more information contact Terry Nolot
Executive Director of Marketing
Ivy Tech Community College
Sellersburg, IN 47172

Springs Valley graduate named Chancellor
Rita Hudson Shourds, 1979 Springs Valley High School graduate, has been named Chancellor of the Southern Indiana campus of Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana.

Ivy Tech President Gerald I. Lamkin commented on Shourds’ selection after she was introduced to the Ivy Tech State Board of Trustees on Thursday in Indianapolis. "Rita is a terrific choice to lead our Southern Indiana region. Her experience is unmatched and her vision for Ivy Tech Community College is right in line with the ambitious statewide strategic plan that we currently have in place. I am expecting wonderful success for the Sellersburg campus."

Ivy Tech Community College Southern Indiana is a growing community college serving Southern Indiana and metropolitan Louisville. The Sellersburg, Indiana campus is part of a statewide community college system with 23 campuses. Ivy Tech Community College statewide enrollment surpassed 70,000 students in Spring 2006. Ivy Tech Southern Indiana enrollment has increased more than 70% since the spring term of 2000. Spring 2006 student enrollment increased nearly 2% with more than 3,600 students.

Shourds has been serving as Interim Chancellor since the departure of former Chancellor Dr. Ty Handy in December 2005. Dr. Handy left the campus after a four-year tenure to become President of Vermont Technical College.

Before taking the Interim Chancellor’s position, Shourds served as the Ivy Tech Southern Indiana Executive Director of Development. She has been with the college for four years. She is also an adjunct faculty member at Indiana University Southeast.

Shourds holds a Bachelor of Arts in Consumer Studies from Indiana University, a Master of Science in Human Resource Management from the University of Louisville, and is a doctorial candidate in Leadership Education at Spalding University.

She brings extensive experience in business, higher education, and development to the Chancellor’s office. Before coming to Ivy Tech Southern Indiana, Shourds served for three years as Director of Development for the Home of the Innocents. From 1998 to 2000 she was the Executive Director of the International Tire & Rubber Association Educational Foundation, Inc.

Shourd’s higher education experience includes a tenure as Department Chair of the Business Division at Sullivan University in Louisville, Kentucky. She also served as a full-time faculty member at Sullivan University for more than ten years.
Before joining Sullivan University, Shourds held the Personnel Director position for the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky.
Shourds is a board member of the Community Foundation of Southern Indiana, Leadership Southern Indiana, and Jeffersonville Rotary. She also serves as Chair of the Lilly Scholarship Endowment Committee and as a Campaign Cabinet member of Metro United Way.

Shourds moves into the campus leadership role as the college launches a new strategic plan designed to address critical higher education and workforce issues. They include improving Indiana’s college participation rate and dramatically increasing the number of community college graduates, transfer students, and workforce certifications earned in professional, technical and information technology fields.

Shourds resides in Floyds Knobs with her husband, Gary, and their two daughters ,Reagan and Kendall.

For more information or to enroll in Ivy Tech Community College media relations, please contact the Office of Marketing and Communications at (812) 246-3301 or toll free at 1-800-321-9021.

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812-246-3301
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