Anne Ponder

Anne Ponder was elected Chancellor of the University of North Carolina Asheville by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors in May 2005 and took office in October 2005. Previously Dr. Ponder served as president of Colby-Sawyer College, an independent liberal arts college in New Hampshire. A native of Asheville, she earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She began her academic career at Elon College (now Elon University) in 1977 as an instructor of English and communications, and subsequently held academic and administrative positions at Guilford College in Greensboro and Kenyon College in Ohio.

As president of Colby-Sawyer College from 1996 to 2005, Dr. Ponder led the development of a long-range strategic plan and new liberal education curriculum, oversaw capital construction, expanded the college’s interaction with the local community, and successfully completed a capital campaign that more than quadrupled the college’s endowment. She is a past president of the North Carolina Honors Association and the National Collegiate Honors Council, and a member of the Advisory Council of the Appalachian College Association. In Asheville, she is a member of the audit committee of Mission Hospitals and Board of Directors of The North Carolina Arboretum.

She is married to Christopher Brookhouse, a writer and publisher previously on the English faculty at UNC Chapel Hill. Her parents, Herschel and Eleanor Ponder, live in Asheville.