Metro State trustee Adele Phelan knows from college presidents. Having served as president of Loretto Heights College for eight years, Phelan has been in a unique position to assess the qualifications of potential Metro State presidents.

As Metro awaits the appointment of a new chief executive, Phelan says the board has been careful in the selection process because “we want the best person we can find to fit the job Metro wants to have done,” and in the interim have the “college operate in a meaningful way to serve students.”

Named to Metro’s inaugural Board of Trustees by Gov. Bill Owens, Phelan is particularly interested in administrative efficiency. In her role as an ongoing consultant to the Clayton Foundation, an organization she led from 1989 to 1998 and of which she is president emeritus, she works in foundation operations and improving their effectiveness. Concerning Metro, she says, “I think we owe Metro an efficient administration that gets things done. I’m interested in organizational efficiency and in how we operate in the larger picture.”

Phelan is no stranger to boards or to academia. She holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in English from Webster University and Saint Louis University respectively and a second master’s in educational psychology from the University of Minnesota. She has served on numerous high-profile boards, many related to childhood development and education, including Invest in Kids, Hospice of Metro Denver, Bright Beginnings, Girl Scouts Mile Hi Council, FACES, the Public Education and Business Coalition, among others.

During her career, Phelan has also worked in the trenches, teaching and serving in various administrative positions at the secondary and college levels. Unlike at other institutions where she has been involved, Phelan has developed an abiding respect for Metro’s unique offerings—its diverse student population, its shared triumvirate campus and especially its teaching mission.

So while Metro waits to hear about the change at the helm, Phelan says, “The good news is things are running along as well as one would hope. Higher education institutions have a lot of resiliency because they have the strength of faculty and staff who have been there for years.”