INDIANAPOLIS – Ursuline College President, Sister Diana Stano, has been elevated to Chair of the Great Midwest Athletic Conference President's Council, effective July 1, 2013, for a term to conclude June 30, 2015. Sister Diana assumed the post following the term of Dr. William Brown, former president of Cedarville University, who guided the conference’s President's Council during its first two years.
Dr. Dan Boone, President of Trevecca Nazarene University, has also been elected as the President's Council Vice-Chair and will follow Sister Diana as Chairperson following her two-year term.
“The Great Midwest Athletic Conference is an organization that is led by the President's Council and is fortunate to have leaders that are committed to the young conference’s growth and continued development,” said Tom Daeger, Commissioner of the G-MAC. “Sister Diana has been a cornerstone of the league since its inception in 2011 and I look forward to serving her and the entire President's Council as we move the G-MAC forward towards its bright future.”
Sister Diana is the 16th president of Ursuline College, a women’s focused institution founded in 1871 by Mother Mary of the Annunciation Beaumont of the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland. Ursuline was the first women's college in Ohio and one of the first in the United States. The College is located in Pepper Pike, Ohio, just a few miles East of Downtown Cleveland and has an enrollment over 1,500.
As the new Chair of the G-MAC President's Council, Sister Diana has a shared his vision for the conference which was approved as an active NCAA Division II conference in 2013 after completing its educational assessment program during the 2012-13 academic year. She will work with Commissioner Daeger in addressing the needs of the Conference and assist in providing guidance and direction from the Presidents Council.
A graduate of Ursuline, Sister Diana earned her doctorate from The Ohio State University and is a graduate of the Harvard University Institute for Educational Management. After starting her career as a teacher at Villa Angela Academy, Sister Diana returned to Ursuline and joined the faculty as an education professor. She has served in various leadership positions including the following: chair of the education department; founder and director of the graduate program in Non-public School Administration, the college's first master's degree program; Dean of Graduate Studies and Director of Institutional Research until her election as president in 1996.
Sister Diana has been active on numerous state, regional and national boards including having served as president of the Ohio Association of Colleges of Teacher Education and the Ohio Confederation of Teacher Education Organizations; chair of the Ohio LEAD Forum; member of the Board of the Greater Cleveland Educational Development Center; the Greater Cleveland Administration Assessment Project, of which she was a founding member. She has also served as secretary/treasurer and president of the Association of Catholic Leadership Programs, program co-chair of the North American Association of Ursuline Educators.
Currently she is secretary and Board member of the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges; secretary and Board member of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio; she previously was a member of the Board and Executive Committee member for the Northeast Ohio Council of Higher Education; as well as the administrative committee Council of Presidents member for the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). She has chaired the American Council of Education's Office of Women in Higher Education Commission, and currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the College of New Rochelle.
Under Sister Diana's leadership, Ursuline College continues to enjoy recognition for academic excellence in nursing and social work, increased enrollment, and the establishment of Athletics in 2000 and the institutions move to the NCAA Division II level.