Zaldwaynaka Scott was unanimously voted by the Board of Trustees’ to serve as the 12th permanent president of Chicago State University and assumed the role on July 1, 2018. Under President Scott’s leadership, CSU has a renewed focus on growing student enrollment, building the school’s reputation for scholarship and research, improving the resources available to the student body, and increasing alumni and community engagement.

As a distinguished business and civic leader, President Scott has played an influential role in the Chicago community for 30 years. Currently, President Scott serves on the Board of Directors for the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital Medical Center Board, where she co-chairs the board’s subcommittee on diversity, and Just the Beginning, an organization devoted to improving the diverse pipeline in the legal field. President Scott is also the former Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Chicago Housing Authority. She also previously served on the Board of Visitors at Indiana University Maurer School of Law and as the elected Vice President of the Chicago State University Board of Trustees.

Prior to her current role, President Scott spent more than 16 years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois where she served as Chief of the General Crimes Section. She also served as Illinois’ first Executive Inspector General for the Agencies of the Governor and Public Universities. In this role, she created an independent executive branch state agency from its inception, developed the United States’ first statewide ethics training platform for state government employees, and created a protocol for the investigation of claims of misconduct, waste, fraud, and abuse.

President Scott holds a law degree from Indiana University Maurer School of Law and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Journalism from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

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