Meet the first female president of the University of the Sciences

University of the Sciences will inaugurate its first female president this Friday. Helen Giles-Gee, a Penn grad with a long history of college leadership roles, will also be the college’s first black president.

It’s a first that’s made even more notable because of the university’s focus on health care and science degrees. Giles-Gee will join Heidi M. Anderson, a black woman hired earlier this year as the college’s provost, according to the Inquirer.

From the Inquirer:

“It’s very significant, both from the standpoint of African Americans and women,” said Bruce Slater, managing editor of the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. “The fact that, here, we have two women in the top two positions at a university that deals in large degree in those fields is really a milestone event.”

Read the whole Inquirer story here.