Susan Henking

Susan E. Henking (born 1955) is an American religious studies scholar. She was the 14th and final president of Shimer College in Chicago, appointed in July 2012 and finishing in 2017. She has since served in interim roles at Salem Academy and College, including Interim President.
Henking was the first female president of Shimer – a small great books college – since its 19th-century founder, Frances Shimer, ceded control to the University of Chicago in 1896. Henking is one of the small number of openly lesbian college presidents.
During her years at Shimer, Henking blogged on higher education and other topics on "The Huffington Post" and "ChicagoNow". She was also a contributor to "Religion Dispatches", an online magazine of religion, politics and culture.
Education.
Henking received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University in 1977 and her Master of Arts degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1979. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1988, and began teaching at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in 1988. Her doctoral dissertation was titled "Protestant Religious Experience and the Rise of American Sociology: A Contextual Study of Varieties of Secularization".
Career.
Henking taught at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, principally in the field of religious studies. She also taught in women's studies. In 1992 she received the Faculty Distinguished Teaching Award. During her time at the Colleges, Henking served on the Board of the American Academy of Religion and as founding editor of the Oxford University Press series Teaching Religious Studies also of the American Academy of Religion. Henking was the interim Dean of Faculty from 1998 to 2001. She headed the Department of Religious Studies from 2002 to 2005 and 2008 to 2009. In addition, before her departure in the summer of 2012, she served as adviser to the Board of Trustees.
Henking has written and taught in the field of LGBT studies. Often her work has been at the junction of LGBT studies and religious studies, as in " Religion" the volume she co-edited in 1997 with Gary David Comstock. She co-chaired the program in LGBT studies at Hobart and William Smith, which was the first such program in the nation to offer a major.
In early 2012, Henking was chosen to become the 14th president of Shimer College. She was the first regular president of Shimer College after the acrimonious departure of Thomas Lindsay in 2010.