The Board of Regents announced that Pamela Whitten is the second presidential search finalist who will visit Iowa State Tuesday. 

Whitten is the senior vice president of student affairs and provost at the University of Georgia, Athens (UGA). She received a bachelor’s degree from the Tulane University School of Business. She got her master’s from the University of Kentucky and her doctorate from the University of Kansas, both from departments of communication. 

In her current position, Whitten is provost to a university containing 17 schools and colleges and 38,000 students — 29,000 undergraduates and 8,700 graduate and professional students. UGA is a land-grant institution.

Whitten is responsible for overseeing all scholarship and research and manages student recruitment, admissions, the registrar, financial aid, student affairs and housing among other responsibilities as provost and vice president of student affairs, according to her curriculum vitae. 

Whitten was a finalist for chancellor of University of Tennessee in 2016, but was passed up for the position which is now held by Beverly Davenport, according to the University of Tennessee Daily Beacon. 

At UGA, Whitten increased the number of online courses by 200 percent and increased summer enrollment by 22 percent to shorten the time to degree and generate revenue for the university. 

In the latter initiative, summer enrollment increased from 13,515 in 2014 to 16,447 in 2017.

Whitten also served at Michigan State University, another land grant institution, where she was appointed as dean of the College of Communication Arts and Sciences in 2009. 

While at Tulane University, Whitten was apart of the Beta Gamma Sigma and Alpha Lambda Delta honor societies.

Whitten will visit Ames on Tuesday for an on-campus interview and an open forum from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union. Anyone can attend the open forum or view the live stream at https://www.presidentsearch.iastate.edu/finalists/whitten.

Open forums will be held Monday through Thursday. Each candidate’s name will be released 24 hours before their campus visit. The Board of Regents will make a final decision on who Iowa State’s next president will be on Oct. 23.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article has been changed due to an error. Pamela Whitten received her master’s from the University of Kentucky. The Daily regrets this error.