Jacksonville University trustees have picked an administrator with track records in science and corporate America to be interim president of the private Arlington-based college.
Lisa Sutherland, now interim dean of JU’s Davis College of Business & Technology, will hold the university’s top post temporarily when President Tim Cost moves to the job of chancellor in July in a change announced Oct. 21.
“Dr. Sutherland is an agile leader,” Cost said in written remarks included in an Oct. 28 announcement of her selection. “… Her strategic insight, combined with her deep commitment to student success and academic excellence, makes her ideally suited to lead the university during this important transition.”
Lisa Sutherland was selected Oct. 28 to be Jacksonville University’s interim president when President Tim Cost becomes JU’s chancellor.
More: JU President Tim Cost leaving role in 2026, adding to local colleges’ changes
In the release, Sutherland said she was “deeply grateful for the trust the Board has placed in me,” and described JU as “a remarkable institution” whose students and faculty are united by a drive to shape the future.
Sutherland, who has a doctorate in nutrition from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, joined JU in 2023 as executive director of its honors and scholars program, now called the Cost Honors College.
She spent more than 20 years before that in jobs that mixed science and business, especially in areas involving food. Her LinkedIn profile lists prior roles as Walmart’s chief food and nutrition adviser and vice president of nutrition for the cereal titan Kellogg Company.
She was also a professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth College, where she researched the impact of marketing and advertising to children on dietary choices, and has maintained a consulting business whose clients included Yum! Brands, Papa John’s, Kraft-Heinz and Dannon.
Entrance to Jacksonville University
At JU, she has co-chaired the university’s 2030 strategic plan and has been an interim dean since July.
JU Trustees Board Chair John Miller said Sutherland’s “unique combination of academic expertise and executive experience, along with her demonstrated success in multiple leadership roles at JU, positions her to provide the steady, strategic leadership our institution needs.”
Trustees will conduct a national search in the spring to identify a permanent president, the school said.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville University taps science, business veteran as interim boss