Examples of significant college initiatives accomplished during Dr. Phipps' presidency to date include:

• The launch of the College's new core course, "Created and Called for Community," which is an integral part of Messiah's new core curriculum for first-year students (the result of four years of comprehensive review and planning by Messiah's Community of Educators). The course serves as a critical introduction to Messiah College's unique heritage, mission, and identity, including an examination of forgiveness, compassion, non-violence, community, and reconciliation. The core curriculum also included the launch of the College's Common Reading Program, in which first-year students read a common text selected specifically to educate students on essential themes related to intellectual and spiritual development.
• The successful completion of "To Serve & To Lead," the largest comprehensive fundraising campaign in Messiah's history, which raised $50.5 million for student enrichment through new facilities, academic programming, and financial aid.
• The completion of the first phase of a new campus Concept Plan which will guide the College's facilities and land use planning and development through the year 2050.
• The formation of a multidisciplinary Integrated Marketing Team responsible to develop a long term strategic plan for meeting the College's student recruitment goals.
• The launch of a College-wide Diversity Strategic Planning Initiative, rooted in a comprehensive, candid survey of Messiah's campus climate related to a wide range of diversity aspects in the campus community.

Prior to becoming president, during her combined tenure as Messiah's academic dean and provost, Dr. Phipps led a successful restructuring of the College, including the recruitment and appointment of five school deans; served as co-leader of the task force to redesign the College's governance structure; designed and implemented important initiatives to support faculty scholarship including a faculty workload reallocation program; gave significant leadership to the educational program review which has resulted in a first-year core curriculum and cocurriculum that is holistic, student-centered and focused on the college's mission and identity; co-authored a $2 million grant from The Lilly Endowment, and served as project director for that award, which has enabled students and colleagues to pursue programming related to understanding and discovering Christian vocation; and provided leadership to the Micah Project Committee, which seeks to address campus climate issues related to diversity. Key accomplishments of this initiative to date include: the design and implementation of a policy and protocol for racial harassment and ongoing anti-racism education for college educators.

President Phipps has researched and authored numerous publications related to the structure, rhetoric, and climate of higher education; the development of educational community; faculty development and identity; gender and diversity communication issues; and the complexities and nuances of religion and American political campaign rhetoric. Most recently, Dr. Phipps authored the epilogue on campus climate and Christian scholarship for the book Scholarship and Christian Faith: Enlarging the Conversation by Messiah professors Douglas and Rhonda Jacobsen, published in March 2004 by Oxford Press. In the fall of 2004, Phipps delivered a Presidential Scholar Lecture on the topic of developing hospitable campus climates and also spoke on this subject at the "Faith in the Academy" national conference, held at Messiah in September 2004, and addressed this subject at a conference for college presidents and provosts at Pepperdine University in April 2005.

President Phipps holds a Ph.D. in communication studies from Kent State University. Before coming to Messiah, she served in a variety of leadership roles at Malone College in Canton, Ohio, including professor and chair of the department of communication arts, acting dean of the college, and associate dean for faculty development.

Dr. Phipps is an active member of the Central Pennsylvania community and currently serves on such regional boards as the YWCA of Greater Harrisburg; and The United Way of the Capital Region; statewide on the board of Pennsylvania Campus Compact; and, nationally, on the board of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.

She is a native of Long Island, N.Y., and lives on campus with her husband, D. Kelly Phipps, J.D., Counsel for Education Services at Delta Development Group, and their daughter, Brooke, a student at Lancaster Mennonite High School.