Jo Ann M. Gora has served as Ball State University's 14th president since 2004. She immediately demonstrated her commitment to putting students first by declining an inauguration and instead establishing a scholarship fund for 25 high-achieving students. She is redefining education by making immersive learning the cornerstone of every Ball State student's college experience.

Gora has led an update of Ball State's strategic plan, which stretches through 2012, and has increased Ball State's commitment to leading-edge technology, campus diversity, and the development of nationally ranked academic programs. She has energized the Building Better Communities economic development initiative, which last year completed 130 projects in 60 Indiana counties.

Under her leadership, more than $320 million of completed or current construction and renovation has changed the face of Ball State's campus since her arrival. The university dedicated four new or completely renovated buildings in four weeks last fall. These include Park Hall, Ball State's first new campus residence hall in nearly four decades, and the David Letterman Communication and Media Building, a leading-edge instructional building that drew lavish praise from its namesake when he returned to his alma mater for the September dedication ceremonies.

President Gora is a member of the American Council on Education's Committee on Leadership and Institutional Effectiveness and is the Indiana representative to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. She has served on the board of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges and the executive committee of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. She is a board member at the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, where she chairs the governance committee, and also serves on the board of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, where she co-chairs the Business-Higher Education Forum.

President Gora was honored as one of 2007's most influential women in Indiana by the Indianapolis Business Journal. In 2005, she received a Torchbearer Award from the Indiana Commission for Women for her commitment to higher education. The award is the highest honor given by the state of Indiana to Hoosier women who have overcome or removed barriers to equality or whose achievements have contributed to making the state a better place in which to live, work or raise a family. She also received a Sagamore of the Wabash, Indiana's highest civilian honor, in 2005.

President Gora came to Ball State from the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she had been chancellor since 2001. Previously, she served for nine years as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Old Dominion University in Virginia. She earned her bachelor's degree in political science from Vassar College and master's and doctoral degrees in sociology from Rutgers University. She has published two books, The New Female Criminal: Empirical Reality or Social Myth? and Emergency Squad Volunteers: Professionalism in Unpaid Work, as well as numerous articles in the fields of criminology, medical sociology, and organizational behavior.