Officials will inaugurate University President Ellen Granberg next month, per an invitation from the Board of Trustees to the GW community Wednesday.
Officials will hold an investiture ceremony Nov. 3 at 11 a.m. in the Smith Center to formally install Granberg as president, during which she will deliver an address and officials, faculty, staff and students will share remarks. A block party in Kogan Plaza will immediately follow the ceremony, according to the invitation.
The day prior to the event, officials will host a panel conversation with University faculty on research and academic excellence in Jack Morton Auditorium from 2:30 to 4 p.m. and a student celebration in University Yard dubbed “The REVelry” from 6 to 8 p.m., which will include music, games, food and a bonfire.
The events are open to students, faculty and emeriti faculty, staff, alumni, community members or neighbors, and “external university or learned society representative or delegates,” per the invitation. Attendees must register for the event by Oct. 25, the invitation states.
Granberg officially began her term as the University’s 19th president on July 1 — the first woman at GW to do so — after officials announced her selection in January. She will replace University President Mark Wrighton, whose term expired at the end of June after he assumed the presidency in January 2021.
Since taking the helm, Granberg has embarked on a national tour to leverage alumni and community members’ ideas for forming goals for the University’s future. One of the stops included a Presidential Conversation in Lisner Auditorium last week, where Granberg said the GW’s membership in the Association of American Universities, community service opportunities and proximity to government institutions sets it apart from other universities nationwide.
Granberg said she met with student organizations and attended staff meetings for departments this fall at Faculty Senate meeting last month. She added that she also met with the Medical Faculty Associates’ Board of Trustees to discuss the organization’s financial stability.
Granberg was as a sociology professor, department chair, associate provost for faculty affairs and senior associate provost at Clemson University before taking over as the provost at the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2018, according to a University release.
