The installation ceremony, focus of a week of inaugural activities, will be held at 5 p.m. in Wynne Chapel on campus. The theme for all inaugural events is “New Horizons.” Dr. Hass began duties as president of Austin College on July 1.  

Seating is limited for the installation event and available to off-campus guests only by advance request. To check seating availability and for reservations, call (903) 813-2057. Alumni and friends not in attendance may access a live video feed of the event at www.austincollege.edu/inauguration.   

Delegates from colleges and universities across the country as well as academic, religious, and political representatives and members of the Austin College community will participate to welcome the new president.  

Dr. Peyton Randolph Helm, president of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, will introduce President Hass before presentation of her inaugural address. Dr. Hass had a 16-year career as a faculty member and then provost at Muhlenberg prior to taking the Austin College presidency.  

Austin College Board of Trustees chair Robert M. Johnson will lead the investiture, assisted by Austin College President Emeritus Oscar C. Page.  

ABOUT PRESIDENT HASS  

The provost at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, from 2004 to 2009, Dr. Hass oversaw all fiscal and personnel aspects of the academic program. Before assuming the provost position in 2004, she served for nearly a year as interim dean of the college for faculty and vice president for academic affairs. She also was director of the Center for Ethics at Muhlenberg for three years, responsible for programming and integration of the center’s program into the curriculum. 

As chief academic officer at Muhlenberg, she had a significant role in the strategic planning process. She initiated a program that created new funding and faculty development opportunities for teaching methods that bridge the gap between theory and practice. That program resulted in enhanced quantity, depth, and quality of faculty-student research collaborations, study abroad experiences, and service learning opportunities. 

At Muhlenberg, Dr. Hass also set out to centralize diversity both as an issue of access and as a curricular foundation of the liberal arts. She had a decisive role in creation of the college’s first multicultural center, procedures to recruit and retain minority faculty, and acquirement of a Mellon Foundation grant that would augment diversity and internationalization of the curriculum. 

Dr. Hass has participated in several administrative development programs, including the American Council for Education National Leadership Forum, Advancing Women’s Leadership; Harvard’s Institute for Educational Management; the Annapolis Group Provosts Meeting; the Academic Chairpersons Conference; and the CASE Development for Dean’s conference. 

During her career, Dr. Hass has become an experienced spokesperson for the importance of liberal arts education for individuals, communities, and for global citizenship. Involved in higher education issues beyond her own campus, Dr. Hass served on the board of directors of the American Conference of Academic Deans and as a member of the Blue Ribbon Panel for the Great Campus Workplace Project of The Chronicle for Higher Education. 

Dr. Hass began her career at Muhlenberg in 1993 as assistant professor of philosophy and was promoted to associate professor in 1998 and to professor in 2006. Her teaching experience provides an insider’s awareness of the synthetic relationship of teaching and creative scholarship with a college’s mission. As an administrator, she created strong systems of support and recognition for faculty scholarship, artistic endeavors, and teaching, while maintaining effective relationships with faculty committees and the college Board of Trustees. 

Dr. Hass earned a bachelor’s degree, with highest distinction, in philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She continued studies there to complete a master’s degree and Ph.D. in philosophy. Her dissertation was “Interpreting Negation: A Semantic Theory of Negation for Standard and Non-Standard Logics.” 

Specializing in philosophy of logic and philosophy of language, she has received several honors for teaching and in support of research. She has published many papers within her academic specialties and frequently presented her work at professional meetings. She co-edited the book Representing Reason: Feminist Theory and Formal Logic, published in 2002.  

President Hass is married to Dr. Lawrence Hass, who serves Austin College as professor of humanities. The couple has two children, Cameron, a sophomore at Muhlenberg College, and Jessica, a sophomore at Sherman High School.  

Austin College is a leading national independent liberal arts college located north of Dallas in Sherman, Texas. Founded in 1849, making it the oldest institution of higher education in Texas operating under original charter and name, the college is related by covenant to the Presbyterian Church (USA). Recognized nationally for academic excellence in the areas of international education, pre-professional training, and leadership studies, Austin College is one of 40 schools profiled in Loren Pope’s influential book Colleges that Change Lives.