When Freeman Hrabowski, the longtime leader of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who led the once-little-known commuter school for three decades, announced his upcoming retirement, the central question on everyone’s mind was who could replace such a towering figure. Enter Valerie Sheares Ashby, a veteran university administrator, the current dean of Trinity College of Arts & Sciences at Duke University, a chemist by training, and, soon, the first woman to lead UMBC.
