New academic officer
Dr. Tracy Espy, vice president of servant leadership and associate professor of sociology at Pfeiffer University, has been appointed provost and vice president for academic affairs at the university. She will assume her duties effective June 1.
In her new position, Espy will provide academic leadership in ensuring curricula, instruction and public engagement are implemented to achieve the vision of both the undergraduate and graduate schools. She will work closely with the more than 150 full-time and part-time faculty members as well as with the faculty senate on matters of general welfare of the university. She will also be responsible for providing leadership in all administrative and fiscal areas of academic affairs, including strategic planning, operations, budgeting and management.
Dr. Chuck Ambrose, Pfeiffer president, selected Espy to replace Dr. Philip Ott, who will again retire on June 30. A longtime university professor and administrator, Ott left retirement to serve in an interim capacity at Pfeiffer until a permanent replacement was appointed.
As a national leader in college-based community and service learning, Espy was the first to be appointed to the position of vice president for servant leadership at Pfeiffer and managed the university’s Francis Center for Servant Leadership. In that role she formulated plans that further implemented the concepts of servant leadership in all aspects of Pfeiffer’s day-to-day operations through various workshops and training programs.
She has published on the topic of service learning and servant leadership and was recently named editor of “Parnterships: A Journal of Service Learning and Civic Engagement,” a national journal. She has been invited to present during the National Campus Compact Professional Development Institute hosted by Brown University in June.
She earned a master of arts degree and a Ph.D. from Syracuse University, a master of science degree from Miami University in Ohio and a bachelor of arts degree from Berea College in Kentucky. She and husband Marvin live in Charlotte with daughter Sydney.