SWEET BRIAR, Va. (WSLS 10 - On Monday, Sweet Briar College announced it hired Meredith Woo as the college's 13th president.
She will succeed Phillip C. Stone, who will retire in May 2017.
On April 3, 2017, Woo will begin a transition period at the College, working closely with President Stone. On May 15, 2017, she will assume the helm as the next president of Sweet Briar College.
From 2008-2014, Woo served as the Buckner W. Clay Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia. Most recently, Woo has been in London working as director of the Higher Education Support Program for the Open Society Foundations.
"It is a privilege to have the opportunity to work with a College so beloved," Woo said. "Educating women is like educating generations. Around the world, I have seen the demand for superior women's education and the demand for the graduates of those institutions. Here at Sweet Briar, we have a real opportunity to recast the significance of single-sex higher education in today's world, and I'm excited to be a part of that effort."
A native of Seoul, Korea, she speaks Korean and Japanese and is proficient in Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese. She has authored or edited six books and numerous scholarly articles, and she is the executive producer of an award-winning film, which premiered at the Smithsonian Institution in 2006.
Woo is married to Bruce Cumings, an author, lecturer, and the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of History at the University of Chicago. Their son, Ben Cumings, 23, is a recent graduate of Bowdoin College and an aspiring actor.