Dr. Marilyn J. Wells has served as Chancellor at Penn State Brandywine since January 2020, where she is a strategic and visionary leader, bold, creative, and people-centered, with a sense of humor.
As Chancellor, Dr. Wells has led to achieve Penn State Brandywine’s Strategic Plan 2020-2025: New Opportunities, New Stories, developed with broad campus community presentation; Brandywine’s first-ever Strategic Enrollment Management Plan resulting in a new trajectory of enrollment growth; and Penn State Brandywine’s long-standing aspiration to transition from USCAA to NCAA Division III athletics.
With students, faculty, and staff the heart of any campus, Dr. Wells enjoys connecting and communicating daily – walking campus, attending events, and her “marilyn’s messages”. She inspired creation of a Staff Advisory Council and Staff Mentoring Program. And more than 2/3 of faculty, across disciplines, have been hired, tenured, promoted, or awarded a sabbatical leave, leading to growth in academic and research excellence.
She’s active in the community spurring outreach and impact, such as the ribbon-cutting for the Brandywine LaunchBox and numerous business, civic, and education partnerships.
Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging have been a core ethos in Marilyn’s life and leadership. A top priority in Brandywine’s Strategic Plan, Dr. Wells introduced Chancellor’s Commissions on Equity by Design leading to progress and change.
Dr. Wells’ career in higher education has spanned positions in land-grant, regional-comprehensive, and private universities, including a historically black college and university, and community colleges. She is unique in that she has held posts in private sector business, in healthcare and hospitality, and in state government, in Pennsylvania and Alabama.
In her personal life, Dr. Wells’ pride and joy are her young adult son and daughter, Thomas and Michelle, and her partner, Roy. She loves baking pies, writing short stories, and the theatre and museums.
Marilyn earned her BS in Home Economics Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, her MS in Health Education and Master of Public Health from East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, and her PhD in Health Education with a cognate in Statistics from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
