Helen J.D. Whippy
Chaminade University of Honolulu has hired as its new provost a woman with four decades of experience in higher educational institutions around the Pacific.
Helen J.D. Whippy, the former senior vice president of the University of Guam, began her three-year term at the Chaminade campus on Aug. 5.
Whippy was the senior vice president of academic and student affairs at the 3,500-student University of Guam since 2001.
A tenured mathematics professor, she had been at the University of Guam since 1988. She has also worked in Fiji at the University of the South Pacific, and in Papua New Guinea at the Papua New Guinea University of Technology.
She is also a cancer health disparities researcher and a strong advocate for women in science and mathematics. Whippy serves as an evaluator for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior Accreditation Commission and has written more than 50 articles, books, courses, technical reports and accreditation reports.
“Dr. Whippy is an experienced academic administrator,” said Chaminade president Marianist Brother Bernard Ploeger. “She is committed to higher education in the Pacific. Most of her professional life has been in the Pacific, starting as a Peace Corp volunteer in Fiji.”
“She brings a rich cultural understanding to the job,” he said.