Oct. 24, 2022 7:15p
(WGTD)---The selection last week of Ritu Raju as Gateway’s next president was a close call, according to the chair of the GTC board of trustees, Rebecca Matoska-Mentink.
"We were very fortunate to have four very qualified candidates," Matoska-Mentink said of the four candidates that were identified as finalists. "And when we narrowed the selection down to two we did realize that we were in that fortunate place of not being able to make a bad decision," she said.
In the end, the board vote in favor of Raju to replace the retiring Bryan Albrecht was unanimous.
What tipped the scales for Matoska-Mentink was Raju’s vision for the college.
Raju currently serves as vice president for Academic Affairs on a community college campus near Ft. Worth, Texas. Before that she served as dean for advanced manufacturing at Houston Community College in Houston.
That’s when she had her first exposure to Gateway. In 2018, Raju attended a conference on Gateway’s Racine campus. "I was just blown away by the partnerships--the depth of involvement in the community," she said.,
The main speaker at the conference she attended was Snap-On CEO Nick Pinchuk, a big Gateway supporter. She later invited him to speak at her college.
Raju begins her new job at Gateway January 5th. Because she’s starting in the middle of the traditional school year, Raju’s contract will run for 18 months. Her base salary, as approved by the board, is $182,000.
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