HispanicBusiness

Dr. France Cordova, an astrophysicist and chancellor at the University of California at Riverside, today was named the 11th president of Purdue University, becoming the first Hispanic woman to lead the West Lafayette, Indiana campus.

Following a seven-month search, Purdue's board of trustees voted unanimously to hire Ms. Cordova, 59.

"Our trustees interviewed several very outstanding candidates who would have been excellent presidents, but Frances Cordova is the right person at the right time for Purdue," J. Timothy McGinley, chairman of Purdue's board, told an audience gathered at Purdue's Loeb Playhouse.

When news broke out at UC Riverside that Ms. Cordova was being courted by Purdue, students at her university picketed, asking her to stay and "faculty started a campaign of e-mails and telephone calls asking her stay," Mr. McGinley told the audience.

"The love of that community for her and the respect for her accomplishments is evident," he said.

Her accomplishments are plentiful.

Among just a few: Ms. Cordova is the winner of NASA's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, and was recognized as a 2000 Kilby Laureate for "contributions to society through science, technology, innovation, invention and education."

Ms. Cordova succeeds Martin C. Jischke, who will retire on June 30 after serving as president for nearly seven years. Founded in 1869, Purdue has an enrollment of about 70,000 students.

"It would be hard to be at Purdue, the intellectual launching pad for 22 astronauts, without commenting on how extraordinary an opportunity this is for me, a space scientist," said Ms. Cordova. "Since I was a young girl, I looked up and wondered about those tiny points of light in the night sky. Many Purdue graduates have traveled in that darkness and seen a sunrise every 90 minutes. I feel privileged to be at the wellspring of inspiration for these space-faring Boilermakers."

Ms. Cordova said she would embark on developing a renewed strategy for the university as she steps into her new role as president this August.

"My highest priority will be the excellence of a Purdue education for our students and the quality of life and opportunities for learning that they can experience on our campuses," said Ms. Cordova. "My husband Chris (Foster) and I will attend student functions around campus, listen to students in dialogue and debate, and include them in making decisions that affect the campus and their experience."

While at UC Riverside, Dr. Cordova appointed a child-care taskforce to examine the need for the campus to institute programs and policies that produce a family-friendly environment, particularly in regard to child-care services. The study led to an additional day-care facility on campus. Ms. Cordova's efforts also led to the approval of a new University of California medical school at Riverside, the first new medical school west of the Mississippi in 45 years.

Ms. Cordova has also helped establish numerous diversity programs at UC Riverside, where she became the first Hispanic woman to ever lead a University of California system campus.

"We've been working on enhancing diversity for a very long time at UC. Riverside and we're proud that we are the most diverse of UC campuses," said Ms. Cordova. "We're very proud that our minority students, we have a lot of students who have Hispanic and Latino backgrounds and African-American backgrounds who succeed at the same rate as the overall population of students."

The American Council on Education reports that while the typical American college president is a 60-year-old white male, some 29 percent of presidents were female in 2006 (up from 8 percent two decades earlier). And while only 5 percent of presidents are Hispanics, more than a third of Hispanic presidents are female, according to the council's "The American College President: 2007 Edition."

The oldest of 12 children, Ms. Cordova was born in Paris, France, to a Mexican father and an Irish-American mother. The West Covina, California native was the first female from her high school to be accepted at Stanford University, where she graduated cum laude with a degree in English. After earning her doctorate in physics from Cal Tech in 1979, Ms. Cordova spent the next 10 years at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a member of the Space Astronomy and Astrophysics Group. She later joined Pennsylvania State University to head its Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Before becoming chancellor at UC Riverside in 2002, Ms. Cordova served as vice chancellor at UC Santa Barbara for six years beginning in 1996. Before heading to UCSB, she served as chief scientist at NASA.

In 1997, Ms. Cordova was named one of Hispanic Business magazine's "100 Most Influential Hispanics" and in 2002 was named one of its "80 Elite Hispanic Women."

She briefly worked as a news writer and editor for the Los Angeles Times News Service and authored a work of fiction, "The Women of Santo Domingo," based on her anthropological field work in Oaxaca, Mexico.

But it was the world of science that has always been closest to her heart.

"I will never forget the day Purdue alumnus Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969," she said. "It eventually drew me to the California Institute of Technology, where I began exploring the mysteries of the universe. And now I've come full circle -- to Purdue, the cradle of astronauts and the place that played a major role in launching my quest."