September 28, 2010 — Suzanne Morse Moomaw, research associate professor of urban environmental planning at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, has been elected chair of the Piedmont Virginia Community College Board.

Her two-year term runs until May 2012. Moomaw was appointed to the PVCC board in 2005 by the city of Charlottesville and served as vice chair from 2008 to 2010. She succeeds J. Walter Levering as the board’s leader.

The Piedmont Virginia Community College Board acts in an advisory capacity to the college and forms a connection between PVCC and the communities it serves. Representatives are appointed by the governing boards of the jurisdictions in the college's service region, which includes the city of Charlottesville and the counties of Albemarle, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa and Nelson.

Moomaw served as president of the Pew Partnership for Civic Change for 18 years. She is a frequent keynote speaker nationally and internationally on topics ranging from high school dropout prevention to the importance of higher education in strengthening democracy, and her articles and opinion pieces have appeared in national journals as well as leading newspapers and trade publications. 

Her book, "Smart Communities: How Citizens and Local Leaders Can Use Strategic Thinking to Build a Brighter Future," uses examples of successful civic change initiatives in the United States to argue for a strategic approach to sustainable, long-term community change.

She serves on many nonprofit boards, including the Kettering Foundation, and has had fellowships at the Center for Organizational & Technological Advancement at Virginia Tech (2006-2009) and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (1991). She received the Ethical Leadership Award from the Content of Our Character Project at Duke University in 2002.