Marja Verbeeten named the new Director of the Women's Leadership Initiative
Marja Verbeeten, assistant professor of hospitality management, has been named the new director of the Women's Leadership Initiative of the College of Health and Human Development effective June 1, 2006. Dr. Verbeeten will take on this role due to the departure of Dr. Lizabeth Self Mullens, the founding director of the WLI, who has accepted the position of vice president for academic affairs/provost at Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, PA.
photo by David Spak
Marja Verbeeten, Assistant Professor of Hospitality Management, has been named the new Director of the Women's Leadership Initiative
Verbeeten joined the Penn State faculty in 2004 after completing her Ed.D. in educational leadership and higher education at Northern Arizona University. She holds a Master of Hospitality Management degree from the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Houston and a master’s degree in comparative literature from Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Verbeeten has been involved with the Women’s Leadership Initiative as a member of its internal advisory committee since she first came to Penn State. She also has held a 20 percent faculty appointment with the WLI since 2005.
The Women’s Leadership, founded in 2003, aims to expose female undergraduate students in the College of Health and Human Development to different leadership styles, introduce them to women who are established leaders in their professions and allow the students to develop their own leadership skills, attitudes and values. Participants are selected annually from a pool of students who have been nominated by faculty members within the College on the basis of their demonstrated leadership potential. Students in the WLI learn about leadership through workshops, field trips, readings, externships, mentoring by alumnae leaders and an applied leadership project.
“I feel privileged to take over this program. It has been well established under the leadership of Dr. Mullens, so all the focus can be on the development of our students, the future of the world.”
Marja Verbeeten
“Dr. Mullens' leadership of the WLI helped to create a model program that enriches the academic experience of a select group of outstanding young women and prepares them to be the leaders of the future,” said Fred Vondracek, interim dean of the College of Health and Human Development. “I am certain that Dr. Verbeeten, in part due to her previous association with the WLI, will create a seamless transition that will ensure that the WLI thrives in the years to come.”
