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Lori Varlotta, Ph.D.
Senior Advisor
Sacramento CA USA
Get in TouchLori E. Varlotta, Ph.D., has had a successful four-decade tenure in higher education administration. Her career has culminated in two back-to-back campus presidencies at private institutions, California Lutheran University and Hiram College. As a Senior Advisor within WittKieffer’s Leadership Advisory solution, Lori assists presidents, institutional leaders, and governing boards in designing programs and strategies that mitigate the challenges facing institutions of higher education today. Her areas of expertise include student recruitment and retention, curriculum reform, student learning and program assessment, accreditation, intercollegiate athletics, diversity programming, shared governance, board relations, and change management.
Lori was the first female president in the history of both Cal Lutheran and Hiram. She drew particular praise for guiding Hiram through a period of near financial insolvency by exceeding fundraising goals, exercising fiscal prudence, and diversifying revenue streams. She led a comprehensive turnaround process that included an institutional rebrand, innovative academic reforms, a tuition-reset, and the modernization of learning technologies. At Cal Lutheran, Lori led a change-management process focused on fiscal sustainability, revenue diversification, institutional governance, and organizational culture. Accordingly, she designed integrated and inclusive strategic and campus facilities plans and overhauled the university governance system. As part of the latter, she and a board committee rewrote and refiled the articles of incorporation; substantially amended the university bylaws to align constituent authority with accountability; and built a new division called Talent, Culture, and Diversity to be led by the institution’s inaugural chief diversity officer.
Earlier in her career, Lori held positions of increasing responsibility including academic directorships, deanships, and vice presidencies at institutions large and small, public and private. She is an accomplished practitioner and scholar who publishes and presents on issues such as change management, assessment and accountability, diversity and inclusion, consensus-building, organizational culture, and educational innovations.
Lori’s perfect weekend day is spent at her cabin in the Sierra Mountains where she enjoys trail running, high-altitude hiking, cross country skiing and snowshoeing. After a solid day of exercise, she loves to spend time in the kitchen with her husband, cooking a spicy Asian-inspired meal and then hunkering down with a good book. In a single night, she is known to devour both a good meal and a mindless beach read, mystery novel, or collection of philosophical essays on education, women in leadership, and civic engagement.
Distinctions
President Emerita, Hiram College
Vice President Emerita, California State University, Sacramento
Education
Ph.D., Educational Leadership and Administration, Philosophy, and Feminist Studies, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
M.S., Cultural Foundations of Education, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York
B.A., Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana