click to enlarge - Courtesy of UVM
- Patricia Prelock
Updated on August 20, 2024.
University of Vermont provost and senior vice president
Patricia Prelock will serve as interim president of the Burlington school, the board of trustees announced on Monday.
Prelock will step in for president Suresh Garimella, who is leaving in the fall to lead the University of Arizona.
Prelock, a former faculty member and dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, has been serving as provost and senior vice president since 2019. She will take over when Garimella leaves, though that date has yet to be announced.
“I am personally grateful to Patty for agreeing to serve as interim president during this important period of transition,” board chair Ron Lumbra wrote in an email to the UVM community on Monday evening. “Her leadership skills and grace, along with her close relationships with deans, trustees, donors, and other stakeholders will support a seamless transition and a continuation of the university’s long trajectory of success.”
Earlier this month, Lumbra said he expected the trustees' search for a new president to take six to eight months.
Prelock, an expert in autism spectrum disorders, has a doctorate in speech/language pathology from the University of Pittsburgh School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, according to her LinkedIn profile. She was serving as interim provost when Garimella began as president in 2019 and soon became provost.
As
provost, Prelock serves as chief academic officer for UVM, and she has worked closely with Garimella, as well as with UVM's deans and vice presidents. UVM has about 12,000 undergraduates and 2,000 graduate students.
In an interview on Tuesday, Lumbra said that Prelock had not decided whether to apply for the president's job.
"She's asked for time to consider that in the weeks to come," he said. He added that Prelock is looking for a campus leader who can fill in as provost while she's interim president.
"Patty will run a process to select a backfill interim provost, like we had for the interim president," he said. "There will be many people for her to choose from."
Prelock was born and raised near Youngstown, Ohio, as one of six siblings, according to a
profile published last summer in
Vermont Business Magazine. Her brother, James, was born with Down syndrome, and Prelock said in the profile that his experiences inspired her to become a speech pathologist.
Prelock moved to Vermont in 1994 when her then-husband got a job at National Life, the profile said. She joined UVM when she helped write a grant application for a program associated with the university's Center on Disability and Community Inclusion.