Page 25 - BusinessWest July 7, 2021

Education
Challenge Accepted
WSU’s New Leader Brings Experience in Education, Public Policy
Linda Thompson had
never applied for a college presidency position before a recruiter called and invited her to pursue that post at Westfield State University. She listened, and agreed it was time to take a 40-year- career in healthcare, public policy, and healthcare education to a new and much higher plane. She becomes WSU’s 21st president at a challenging time, especially as schools large and small return to something approaching normal after 16 months of life in a pandemic. But with her diverse background, she believes she’s ready for that challenge.
LBy George O’Brien
inda Thompson remembers not only the call from the headhunter, made to gauge her interest in applying for the president’s position at
Westfield State University, but the words of encouragement that accompa- nied it.
“She said, ‘Linda, I think you’re ready to think about being a president,’” said Thompson, who at the time was dean of the College of Nursing and Health Scienc- es at UMass Boston and hadn’t pursued
a president’s position before. “She said, ‘you’re a dean now ... look at the work deans do; they raise money, they create new programs, they create partnerships, they work with the board. The things you do as a dean are the things you’ll do as a president.”
More important than the recruiter thinking she was ready for the post at
Linda Thompson, the 21st president of Westfield State University.
EDUCATION
JULY 7, 2021 25
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