Carriuolo

WARWICK — Nancy Carriuolo, a state higher education official and the only internal finalist in a national search, has been selected the ninth president of Rhode Island College.

The state Board of Governors for Higher Education unanimously voted to approve the appointment last night at a meeting at the Community College of Rhode Island.

Carriuolo, 59, will replace John Nazarian, 75, RIC’s president since 1990. Nazarian, who has spent 58 years at the college as a student, professor and administrator, announced last fall he would step down when his contract expires June 30.

Carriuolo is the second woman to be appointed president at one of the state’s three public colleges. The first was Carol Guardo, who served as RIC’s president for three years in the late 1980s. Neither the University of Rhode Island nor CCRI has had a female president.

“It is a privilege and an enormous responsibility, because a number of younger female leaders will be watching and wishing me well and thinking about their own careers and what the possibilities might be for them,” Carriuolo said.

Carriuolo has served as RIC’s interim vice president for academic affairs for the past year and is also deputy commissioner and chief academic officer at the Rhode Island Office of Higher Education, where she has worked since 2000.

The college, a master’s-degree granting institution first established in 1854 as the state’s teacher-training college, today also trains thousands of the state’s nurses, social workers and business people. The college’s 180-acre campus is located near the North Providence border, and has about 9,000 students.

Carriuolo said her familiarity with RIC will help her in her new role. She is expected to sign a three-year contract that takes effect July 1 within the next few weeks, said Higher Education Commissioner Jack Warner. He said he expected her salary to be “in a similar range” to the roughly $190,000 Nazarian is receiving this year.

“I’ve worked alongside President Nazarian and the faculty and staff at Rhode Island College and I think I understand the college in a way I can only understand from working there for a year,” Carriuolo said. “I think that will allow me to provide leadership and service in the challenging budget years that lie ahead.”

A search committee first narrowed the field of roughly 50 applicants down to 8 semifinalists and then down to 4 finalists, said Michael Ryan, vice-chairman of the Board of Governors and head of the search committee.

This morning, Warner informed the board that one of the finalists, Nancy Kleniewski, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Bridgewater State College in Bridgewater, Mass., had accepted the presidential position at SUNY College at Oneonta, N.Y.

The two other finalists were Alfred J. Guillaume Jr., vice chancellor for academic affairs and French professor at Indiana University at South Bend and John William Folkins, chief executive officer at the Bowling Green State University Research Institute in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Prior to coming to Rhode Island, Carriuolo was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences/School of Hotel/Restaurant Management and Dietetics Administration at the University of New Haven, where she also served as executive director of entrepreneurial programs. In addition, she was a tenured English professor and served as assistant provost at the Connecticut university.

Carriuolo also worked at the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, as director of the office of school and college relations.

Carriuolo has a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in education from the State College of New York at Brockport, and a doctoral degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She began her career as a high school English teacher in New York.

Carriuolo said she intends to honor RIC’s history as a gateway to higher education for first-generation college students and immigrants, while positioning the college for the future.

“I hope to continue the college’s legacy and maintain offerings in education, nursing, social work and the arts and humanities, all of which have had an impact on the citizenry of Rhode Island,” Carriuolo said. About 85 percent of RIC’s graduates remain in Rhode Island.

“I also hope to expand continuing education and contracts with business and industry, particularly with our School of Management, and increase the number of grants and research support for faculty,” she said. “We are also trying to develop more of a specialty in math and science education, with the establishment of the state’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Center at RIC.”

Carriuolo said she also hopes to involve more commuter students in athletics, performing arts and other extracurricular activities. About 80 percent of RIC’s students live off campus.

Carriuolo, who lives on the East Side of Providence, is married to Ralf Carriuolo, a retired music professor. They have a son, Matthew, a Brown University graduate who teaches physics in New Haven, Conn.

jjordan@projo.com