Ambler to Serve as Interim VP for Student Affairs
Virginia M. Ambler, assistant vice president for student affairs will serve as Interim Vice President for Student Affairs, William and Mary Interim President W. Taylor Reveley, III announced today. Ambler will take the post July 1, 2008 following the retirement of W. Samuel Sadler. Sadler, who announced his retirement in January, has worked at the College since 1967 – the past 19 as vice president for student affairs.
Reveley said the search for a permanent Vice President for Student Affairs would proceed under the College’s next president.
“Sam Sadler's contributions to William and Mary for more than a generation are legendary. I am confident, however, that Ginger Ambler can lead us into the post-Sadler era without missing a beat,” he said. “She knows student affairs at the College extremely well and will bring great talent to the job."
Ambler, who has been with the College nearly 17 years, became assistant vice president for student affairs in 2001. Prior to that, she served as assistant to the vice president for student affairs from 1991until 2000. A career student affairs professional, Ambler was also the acting assistant director of career services for the College of Arts and Sciences at The Ohio State University and the assistant director of residential life at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.
“At a time when leadership continuity is especially important, the College is fortunate to have someone like Ginger Ambler to provide interim leadership to the division of student affairs,” Sadler said. “She understands the college and its students, has been a part of most of the major developments in student affairs and many in the college at large for the past seventeen years and possesses rock-solid, steady judgment.”
As assistant vice president for student affairs, Ambler has broad responsibilities which include budget and staff development, graduate assistant placement and professional development, administering the College’s honor and judicial appeals process; planning campus events such as Opening Convocation and Commencement, and serving as a permanent member of the College’s Emergency Management Team. She is also co-chair of the William and Mary Women’s Network, a member of the Student Affairs Diversity Task Force, and she has been a co-facilitator of the undergraduate Women’s Leadership Program. Ambler has been actively involved in assessment activity at both the division and the university level, and she currently serves on a number of college-wide committees, including the re.Web Advisory Committee and the Digital Imaging Task Force. Currently she is also teaching as an adjunct assistant professor in the School of Education. Ambler has presented programs at national conferences on such topics as responding to student death, assessing campus culture, serving graduate students, and understanding media relations.
Ambler is a double alumna of the College of William and Mary; she graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in English in 1988 and she received a Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Policy, Planning and Leadership in 2006. In 2006 she received the Thatcher Prize for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Study and her dissertation won the 2007 Melvene D. Hardee Dissertation of the Year Award. Ambler also holds a M.A. in Higher Education and Student Affairs (’90) from The Ohio State University.
