Dr. Walter R. McCollum is the chancellor at Ivy Tech Community College, Richmond Campus, where his focus is to collaborate with community leaders across five counties in the Richmond, Ind., service area to ensure students have opportunities to reach their dreams of earning higher education and securing high-wage jobs. He is an Air Force and Desert Storm veteran of 13 years, who is very passionate about education, support and programming for active military, veterans and their families. Recently, he served as vice president for Miami Dade College Online.
Dr. Walter R. McCollum is the chancellor at Ivy Tech Community College, Richmond Campus, where his focus is to collaborate with community leaders across five counties in the Richmond, Ind., service area to ensure students have opportunities to reach their dreams of earning higher education and securing high-wage jobs. He is an Air Force and Desert Storm veteran of 13 years, who is very passionate about education, support and programming for active military, veterans and their families. Recently, he served as vice president for Miami Dade College Online. He has both higher education and workforce experience, having administered and taught in higher education for over 15 years at community colleges, four-year institutions and online universities as well as serving in top multinational corporations as a senior leader in change management, organizational development, quality management and process improvement.
He is passionate about impacting positive social change globally. As a Fulbright Scholar, he recently completed a Fulbright grant with the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Amman, Jordan, to evaluate the selection and evaluation processes for hiring university presidents in public universities in Jordan and make recommendations for the academic congressional mandate for hiring university presidents in the Kingdom of Jordan. Dr. McCollum has led delegations to South Africa, Costa Rica and Haiti to work on issues related to poverty, gender equality and education.
In 2018, he built a primary school in Haiti through the Walter McCollum Education Foundation (with 208 students in the inaugural class/50 percent boys and 50 percent girls) to improve literacy and gender inequality. Dr. McCollum is a fellow of the Association of Governing Boards Institute for Leadership and Governance in Higher Education and a graduate of the Penn State Academy.
He holds an Associate of Applied Sciences degree in business management from Dabney S. Lancaster Community College; a Bachelor of Science degree in liberal arts/psychology from the University of the State of New York SUNY Albany; a Master of Arts degree in management from Webster University; and a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in applied management and decision sciences with a specialization in leadership and organizational change from Walden University. Dr. McCollum has written seven books and published many articles in peer-reviewed publications.
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