Athens State recently named Dr. Catherine Wehlburg as the interim president following the resignation of Dr. Philip Way.

Wehlburg previously served as the provost and the vice president of academic affairs.

With the new appointment as interim president, Wehlburg will take a more active role in steering the university into the next phase of its future.

“Dr. Wehlburg’s ongoing service at Athens State, along with her vast experience in higher education, makes her an excellent fit to continue the University momentum during this time of transition,” Board of Trustees Chair Arthur Orr said. “We are confident Dr. Wehlburg’s leadership will be valuable to the University and local community during this time and are excited for the future of the institution.”

Wehlburg has been in higher education for more than 30 years. She served in several different roles prior to joining Athens State, including tenured full professor, department chair, associate dean, dean, and associate provost.

While Wehlburg didn’t necessarily see herself filling a presidential role, she is enjoying her time serving as president so far.

“The president role was always something that was more external … but this opportunity came up and, of course, I love Athens State, and, of course, I’m going to do whatever I can do,” Wehlburg said. “In the time that I’ve been doing this, I’ve found that I really have enjoyed it, in that, you know, I get to focus on more than academic affairs and look across and have conversations I wouldn’t have had otherwise and get a chance to talk to more of the people in our community about the ways that we can interact and partner and how we can help them and how they can help us.”

According to Wehlburg, Academic Affairs is the mission of the institution and everything else happens to support teaching and learning.

“The bulk of the personnel and the budget is in academic affairs, because that’s where we do the work that a university does,” Wehlburg explained. The leap from Academic Affairs to the presidential seat isn’t very wide, as the internal and external connections all ultimately come back to Academic Affairs. “The opportunity now is to not just see them but actually work to help structure those connections and structure the way that we work together so that we can do that even more smoothly.”

She went on to say, “being in Academic Affairs, I think, has been really helpful from that perspective.”

“Looking at Dr. Wehlburg during her time here, it’s clearly evident her passion for students and for academics and for making the whole circle happen where they can succeed,” Director of Marketing Chris Latham said. “I think that’s one of the reasons that us as faculty and staff, we are so excited to see her blossom into this role and for the future of the university and, too, the passion for the community, you know, being so well connected to the community, because it is this full circle that kind of all goes together like a puzzle piece.”

Wehlburg says she is now, as president, able to support academic affairs and community relations differently.

“I think my background has given me a lot of skills that can can help in fostering the conversations that need to happen in higher education,” Wehlburg said.

According to her, as the national social expectations toward higher education continue to change without higher education changing with it so much, the conversation around it has to also evolve.

“We have to start having some pretty serious conversations about what is higher ed’s role in a democracy, and I think that sitting in a president seat gives me more access to those conversations than sitting in a provost seat,” she said.

For that reason, Wehlburg could possibly see herself in a permanent presidential role some day.

“I’ll say the jury’s out still, we’ll see how this next year goes,” she laughed. “It’s been wonderful, it’s been absolutely fabulous.”

In the meantime, Wehlburg will act as interim president at Athens State until the university chooses a permanent president.

Conversations will happen between stakeholders between now and mid-summer or so, and the university will put out its official call for the next president in the fall “in the hopes that the permanent president would be in place mid-summer of ‘24,” Wehlburg explained, based on the typical timeline.

“Athens State has reinvented itself many times in significant ways and I think that we have absolutely the capacity to define who and how we want to be,” Wehlburg said. “I think that we’ve got to figure out how we define ourselves in this new environment.”

The individual named as permanent president will carry on the defining work that Wehlburg leads over the next year.