Inaugural Ombuds for Lewis & Clark College Announces Retirement

Valerie White, who established the Ombuds program at the liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon, in 2008, has announced that she will retire at the end of June this year. The college says that White handled over 4,000 cases, involving 5,756 people, during her tenure. Lewis & Clark's President, Robin Holmes-Sullivan, said, “We are all deeply appreciative of how she has shaped campus culture during her many years here.” 

White's Ombuds work capped a career that began quite differently. She started in banking and became a Vice President of US Bankcorp. In 1998, she moved to academia and became an Associate Dean and Professor at the Lewis & Clark College Graduate School. She later worked Antioch University and Seattle University before returning to Lewis & Clark to pilot the Ombuds role. White has also been a leader of the California Caucus of College and University Ombuds and has held a wide range of formal and informal roles. She received the lifetime achievement (Pete Small) award in 2014. The, in 2017, the annual service award was renamed in her honor to reflect her years of dedication and leadership. White plans to work on a book she is writing about her great-great-grandparents Jane Jackson and William Jackson, who were active in the American abolitionist movement. (Lewis & Clark News; LinkedIn.)

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