Dr. Susan Schultz Huxman

Dr. Susan Schultz Huxman has served for more than 25 years in higher education in a variety of administrative and academic leadership roles. She has served as Eastern Mennonite University’s ninth president since Jan. 1, 2017.

Since 2011, she was president of Conrad Grebel University College Waterloo, Canada. Previously, she was director of the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University, the only comprehensive, integrated communication program in the state of Kansas. She has served on the board of Mennonite Education Agency (MEA) and of Western District Conference of Mennonite Church USA. A graduate of Bethel College, Dr. Huxman holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in communication studies from University of Kansas.

Dr. Huxman has won numerous awards and recognition for teaching excellence when on the faculty at WSU and continues to teach and mentor at Conrad Grebel. She has published two dozen scholarly articles and book chapters and is co-author with Karlyn Kohrs Campbell of The Rhetorical Act: Thinking, Speaking, and Writing Critically, 5th ed. (2015) and editor of Landmark Speeches on U. S. Pacifism, Texas A & M University Press (2015).

A 1982 graduate of Bethel College with a degree in English, Dr. Huxman went on to specialize in communication at the University of Kansas. Her dissertation, titled “In the world but not of it: Mennonite rhetoric in World War I as an enactment of paradox,” was inspired by an interterm history class that she took at Bethel. She served on the Board of Directors of Mennonite Education Agency (MEA) of MC USA from 2001-2007. She is a member of Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church, Kitchener, Ontario. Previously, she was a member for 20 years of Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church in Wichita, Kansas.

She and her husband, Jesse, (former Director of Communications, Mennonite Foundation of Canada; previously, Director of Content, KPTS-TV 8, a PBS affiliate; Bethel College ‘81) have three adult children: Julia, 25 (J.D., University of Kansas Law, B.A., Bethel College); Emily, 21 (junior at Bluffton University, Ohio) and Connor, 18 (first-year student at University of Waterloo and Conrad Grebel) and son-in-law Trey Ronnebaum (Ph.D. candidate, chemistry, University of Kansas, married to Julia).

MEDIA RELATIONS AREAS OF EXPERTISE

• Strategic Communication in Organizations
• Effective Storytelling in the Workplace
• Media Literacy
• Rhetoric of American Social Movements: Civil Rights, Early Woman’s Movement, Peace
• Public Speaking, Leadership, and Gender Dynamics
• Women & Sport, Women in Leadership
• Crisis Communication
• Why Christian Education Matters
• Grooming Articulate Citizens in a “Post-Truth” World
• Great U. S. Peace Speeches

• July, 2011-June 2016
  • President, Conrad Grebel University College
  • Professor, University of Waterloo, Ontario Canada
• 2004-2011
  • Director, Elliott School of Communication, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, USA
  • Associate Professor of Communication, 2003-2004 Interim Director, Elliott School of Communication
  • Associate Professor of Communication
• 1998-2002
  • Associate Professor, Elliott School of Communication
• 1994-1997
  • Coordinator, Master of Arts in Communication Program
  • Elliott School of Communication, Associate Professor
• 1990-1994
  • Director, WSU Oral Communication Program
  • Assistant Professor of Communication
• Previous: 1988-1990
  • Director, Public Speaking Program
  • Assistant Professor of Speech Communication and Theater Arts, Wake Forest University