Background
Dr. Madeleine Wing Adler is a Senior Associate of Penson Associates and President Emerita of West Chester University, West Chester, Pennsylvania. As President of WCU for 16 years, Dr. Adler pioneered the “distributed leadership” approach to university administration. Previously she was Vice President for Academic Affairs at Framingham State College (Massachusetts) and a long-time faculty member and administrator at The City University of New York, including Queens College and the CUNY Central Office. She has also taught at American University and Pennsylvania State University.
She has also served as: Chair of the Board of Directors of the Chester County (Pennsylvania) Community Foundation; Member, Board of Directors, American Association of State Colleges and Universities; President of the Commission of the University (Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education); founding Member, Board of Directors, Chester County Fund for Women and Girls; Member, Board of Directors, Willow Financial Bank; Member, The Forum of Executive Women (Philadelphia); President, Center for Applied Research and Analysis in the Social Sciences (New York); New York City Comptroller’s appointee to the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation; and Staff Member, Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. She is author or co-author of a wide variety of publications, including: “Governors and Public Policy Leadership” (in Governors and Higher Education [Education Commission of the States]), “Relations between Government and Nonprofit Organizations” (in The Nonprofit Organization Handbook [McGraw-Hill]), Decentralization at the Grassroots: Political Innovation in New York City and London (Sage), and “Higher Education and the Politics of Investment” (Vital Speeches of the Day).
Her consulting focuses on transitions and change in universities, leadership coaching, top management team building, strategic planning, presidential assessment, and board/president relations.
Dr. Adler earned degrees from Northwestern University and The University of Wisconsin, Madison. She holds a B.A. from Northwestern University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.