Wim Wiewel, President, Portland State University
Wim Wiewel assumed the presidency of Portland State University in August 2008. Under his leadership, the university has developed five guiding themes: provide civic leadership through partnerships, improve student success, achieve global excellence, enhance educational opportunity, and expand resources and improve effectiveness. This has brought a renewed focus on expanding the university’s civic partnerships in the region and achieving a new degree of excellence through investments such as the $25 million James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation challenge grant for sustainability.
Since Wiewel’s arrival at Portland State, research expenditures have increased more than 60 percent, athletic programs won 14 conference championships, enrollment grew for the 16th consecutive year, and the University was singled out in the U.S. News and World Report’s 2010 edition of America’s Best Colleges for its commitment to engaged learning through its community partnerships and programs. In 2011, the university’s sustainability programs were awarded a Gold STARS rating by the Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and The Princeton Review featured PSU in its “The Best 376 Colleges: 2012 Edition.”
Prior to coming to Portland State, Wiewel was the provost and senior vice president of Academic Affairs at the University of Baltimore. While at Baltimore, he initiated a new freshman and sophomore program, and a new emphasis on the university’s role in Baltimore’s revitalization.
From 1979 to 2004, Wiewel was with the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where he most recently served as dean of the College of Business Administration. He also served as dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs and as special assistant to the chancellor. In these positions, Wiewel played a lead role in establishing the Liautaud Graduate School of Business, a new College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, and the UIC Great Cities program. Wiewel also directed UIC’s Center for Urban Economic Development.
He holds degrees in sociology and urban planning from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and a Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University.
Wiewel is chair of the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities and on the boards of the Portland Business Alliance, World Affairs Council of Oregon, the American College and University’s Presidents Climate Commitment, and the Metro Leadership Council. He is past president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, a fellow of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and senior editorial adviser of Economic Development Quarterly.
Wiewel has authored or edited nine books and more than 65 articles and chapters that have appeared in such publications as Economic Development Quarterly, Economic Geography, and the Journal of the American Planning Association. His most recent books are Global Universities and Urban Development, The University as Urban Developer, and Suburban Sprawl