Dr. Lucie Lapovsky is a founding board member of the Pan-African Higher Education Initiative Foundation (PAHEi). The organization benefits from her senior level experience at top tier U.S. higher education institutions, including as President of Mercy College.
Dr. Lapovsky, principal of Lapovsky Consulting, is an economist who consults, writes and speaks widely on issues related to higher education finance, pricing, strategy, governance, and enrollment management. She also specializes in searches for chief financial officers. Her clients include private schools, colleges and universities throughout the United States and various companies and organizations throughout the world. Recent clients include the Japanese Educational Foundation, The National Association of Independent Schools, The Endeavor Foundation, Nomura Securities, Pitzer College, York College of PA, Roanoke College, Illinois Wesleyan University, The Kiski School and Cheshire Academy. In addition, she is actively engaged in research on price resets, tuition discounting and cost containment.
Dr. Lapovsky is the co-editor of three books: Strategic Financial Challenges for Higher Education: How to Achieve Quality, Accountability and Innovation; Roles and Responsibilities of Chief Financial Officers both published by Jossey-Bass and The White House Project Report: Benchmarking Women’s Leadership. She is a frequent contributor to Forbes and is the author of more than 200 chapters and articles as well as a frequent speaker at major higher education conferences.
Dr. Lapovsky served as President of Mercy College, a multi – campus institution of 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students with campuses in New York City, Westchester and on-line from 1999 to 2004. Dr. Lapovsky has more than 30 years of experience in Higher Education Finance in both the public and private sectors. Prior to coming to Mercy College, she served as Vice President for Finance at Goucher College, and worked at the University of Maryland at College Park, the Maryland Higher Education Commission, and the Maryland State Department of Budget and Fiscal Planning.
Dr. Lapovsky chairs the board of the Suncoast International Women’s Forum and serves on the boards of the American Public University System (chair of Student Affairs Committee), the Education Foundation of Sarasota (Treasurer), the Asolo Theatre, and the Tuition Exchange (Treasurer). She has also served on the boards of Cedar Crest College, Western New England College, Packer Collegiate Institute, and the McDonogh School among others.
Dr. Lapovsky received her B.A. degree from Goucher College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from the University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Lapovsky also attended the new President’s Institute and the Institute for Educational Management at Harvard and the Directors Institute at Duke. Among her many honors, she was the recipient of the Donna Shavlik award from the American Council on Education for Advancing Women’s Leadership in Higher Education in 2016; she was named one of the top 100 women in Maryland in 1999 by the Daily Record and she received the Alumni Award of Honor from Packer Collegiate Institute in NY in 2009.
