Sep 17, 2013 4 min read

WAYNESBURG – Waynesburg University announced Tuesday that Dr. Jacquelyn J. Core was named vice president of academic affairs and provost of the university.

In her role, she will serve as the chief academic officer, as well as a member of the senior administrative team.

“Dr. Core’s impressive background and strong analytical mind, paired with her enthusiasm for her work and our Christian mission, leave me with no doubt that she will continue to serve the university well,” said Waynesburg University President Douglas G. Lee.

Core joined the university as vice president for institutional effectiveness and planning in May and soon after transitioned into the role of acting provost. The search committee unanimously recommended Core as vice president of academic affairs and provost, effective Sept. 11.

“I am honored to have been chosen for this position,” said Core. “We have a tremendously talented faculty and a dedicated staff here at Waynesburg that make this university what it is. It is because of these people that our students are so well prepared and experience such success. To be a part of this team is my privilege.”

Since joining Waynesburg University, Core led efforts to expand the mentoring program to provide weekly, one-on-one support for additional at-risk students, and, at the faculty’s request, she has lowered the class sizes in writing-intensive classes such as freshman composition and news writing and reporting.

“These changes will propel our already great academic system further ahead, continuing the legacy of our past president and now Chancellor (Timothy) Thyreen,” Core said. “The changes were initiated by faculty and staff and demonstrate that we have a core of dedicated servant leaders here who are committed to doing the right thing to make our student experience the best it can be.”

Previously, Core served as the senior deputy general counsel for health sciences and a member of the senior management team at the West Virginia University Health Science Center.

There, she assisted with accreditation, federal and state compliance, strategic and institutional planning and reorganization. She remains an assistant professor in the medical education department at West Virginia University. She has extensive teaching experience at the undergraduate, graduate and professional levels in geography and at the WVU Health Sciences Center, including classroom teaching, teaching legal and compliance issues and continuing legal and medical education.

Her legal duties included assisting with student and faculty issues, compliance and contracts and providing advice for 52 separately accredited ACGME residency and fellowship programs, four accredited health schools and a public health school currently in the accreditation process

Prior to her time at WVU, Core was a partner in a law firm where she had a national litigation practice, trying more than 30 cases to verdict including education, employment and medical negligence cases. There, she gained significant regulatory and employment counseling experience as well as comprehensive risk management and risk reduction experience.

Core earned a bachelor of arts degree in political science from WVU, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She also earned a Ph.D. in human geography and a law degree from WVU. While in law school, she received the prestigious Order of the Barristers Award and was Associate Chief Justice of the Appellate Moot Court Board.

Core is an executive board member of the Mountaineer Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. With the Boy Scouts, she has completed Wood Badge Leadership Training and serves as her youngest son’s Webelos Den Leader in Pack 696. She is also an assistant scoutmaster with Troop 93, where her oldest son is a First Class Scout.

Active in her community, Core has served on the boards of the Greater Uniontown Arts and Heritage Consortium, Arts Monongahela, Laurel Run of Big Sandy Watershed Association, the P. Pendleton Kennedy Chapter of Trout Unlimited.

She is an elder at the Trinity United Presbyterian Church in Uniontown.